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THE MAGNA CHARTA OF 
THE KINGDOM OF GOD 



PLAIN STUDIES IN 
OUR LORD'S SERMON 
ON THE MOUNT # # 



BY 

GEORGE F. GENUNG, D. D. 



PHILADELPHIA 

Bmerican JSaptlet IPubllcatton Society 

I goo 



TWO COPIES RECEIVED. 

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Copyright igoo by the 
American Baptist Publication Society 



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vo:t».: >3f • • **•' : 






For men begin to pass their nature^ s bound, 
^nd find new hopes and cares which fast supplant 
Their proper joys and griefs ; and outgrow all 
The narrow creeds of right and wrong, which fade 
'Before the unmeasured thirst for good ; while peace 
T^ises within them ever more and more. 

— 'Browning 



PREFACE 



It is universally agreed that the Sermon on the 
Mount is an utterance of cardinal significance in 
its relation to that divine kingdom which Christ 
came to set up in the hearts of men. What that 
relation is, however, is a question that has received 
various answers. The title here chosen may per- 
haps suggest, as well as a single phrase could, the 
idea to which the present study of that discourse 
has led. The Sermon on the Mount is not a code 
or digest of specific commands, nor is it, though 
indeed in imperative form, a manifesto, summariz- 
ing those intentions of the King which mere extra- 
neous authority is adequate to enforce. It proposes 
a kind and degree of obedience which only the free 
and loving impulse of the regenerate heart can 
make good. Meeting us on the threshold of the 
kingdom of God, it determines for us our status^ 
where we stand, as free and loyal subjects, in the 
sight of God and in the presence of our true life. 
We may, therefore, borrow Dr. Augustus Nean- 
der's phrase and call it the *^ Magna Charta of the 
Kingdom of God," our great charter, not, like that 
old document at Runnymede, extorted by angry 
subjects from a reluctant king, but graciously 
originated by the King himself, who is also our 
representative, and laying down a divine law such 



VI PREFACE 

as no subject could or would have devised, yet 
expressing the subject's willing allegiance as no 
contrivance of his could ever do. 

The following chapters are called plain studies, 
because they aim to set forth in direct and simple 
terms, without rhetoric and without theological 
technicalities, the main lines of truth followed in 
the great discourse, as they should be viewed, not 
by scholars only, but by ordinary thinking men. 
The standards of interpretation here sought are 
just the standards of a devout common sense. No 
elaborate exposition is attempted, and many of the 
momentous truths and implications of the discourse 
are merely suggested, not followed out in detail. 
This way seemed best, however, in working out 
the writer's main intention, which is to indicate 
the underlying unity that binds its precepts to- 
gether and the fundamental relation of its teaching 
to all Christian ethics. And the reader who shall 
catch the spirit which is recognized as the central 
spring of this discourse and of all true Christian 
obedience will, it is hoped, find this attempt com- 
mended to his Christian consciousness as substan- 
tial truth. 

That the book may do good by promoting a 
clearer understanding of the New Testament ethi- 
cal standpoint is the earnest prayer of the author. 

Richmond, January, 1900 



CONTENTS 

CHAPTER PAGE 

I. The Teacher and his Authority i 

II. The Morality which is the World's Savor and 

Light 23 

III. Relation of the Morality of Enthusiasm to 

Law 47 

IV. Righteousness whose Reward is of the Earth 71 
V. The Heavenly Treasure . 99 

VI. Correctives of Egoism 121 

VII. The Susceptibility of Obedience 143 



THE TEACHER AND HIS AUTHORITY 



Matt, 7 : 2g 



He taught them as one having authority. 

Imagine a mountain region and a bright, clear, 
summer morning. A great crowd of people is 
coming together from every part of Palestine, all 
with expectant faces and with eager, inquiring at- 
titudes and words. As the sun rises higher in 
the heavens the throng steadily increases. We 
hear the low hum of conversation as men every- 
where engage in inquiry or discussion. Here is a 
group of men with malignant faces watching nar- 
rowly every movement of the crowd, and appar- 
ently ill able to brook the state of feeling which 
draws so great an assemblage to this remote place. 
Here we come across a group listening in open- 
eyed wonder to one of their number who is nar- 
rating the story of some marvelous cure. At 
every few steps we see a litter with a groaning 
sufferer upon it ; for people have brought their 
sick with the hope of having them healed. Now 
and then we catch a glimpse of some poor, emaci- 
ated invalid making his laborious way through the 
crowd, seeking for a sight of the healer w^hom he 
has come here to meet. So all is stir and expecta- 
tion. The great crowd grows gradually more com- 
pact in a level plain at the base of a considerable 
elevation from whose rugged summit they are evi- 
dently expecting somebody to descend. 

3 



4 MAGNA CHARTA OF THE KINGDOM OF GOD 

Presently there is a stir in the crowd as their 
eyes catch sight of people approaching on the 
sides of the mountain. A young man with a 
heavenly calmness and dignity of manner comes 
toward the plain. Men are instinctively reverent 
in his presence; and yet, as he approaches nearer, 
his aspect reveals nothing to fear. In his eye is 
the light of an indescribable love. The most sin- 
ful seem drawn toward him ; and there radiates 
from him an ineffable influence which is felt to be 
universally healing in its nature. 

He is accompanied by twelve plain men, his 
disciples. After a night spent in prayer on the 
mountain, he has just chosen, from the large 
number of those who would attach themselves to 
him, these twelve as his apostles. Their number 
suggests a new and spiritual twelve tribes of 
Israel ; and this act of setting them apart is but 
one interesting movement suggestive of founda- 
tion-laying in what seems to the people a mar- 
velous era of new beginnings. All through 
northern Syria there is the stir of expectant life ; 
a great multitude has come together as his avowed 
disciples, while many more are eager to hear his 
words and to be healed of their diseases. On his 
approach there is almost a stampede in the crowd 
as they press forward to touch him. 

After he has passed through the people and 
healed their sick, he takes his seat on a rise of 
ground with the listening multitude at his feet. 
He begins to speak and they hang spellbound 
upon his words. The text cited at the beginning 
chronicles the impression which his discourse pro- 



THE TEACHER AND HIS AUTHORITY 5 

duces upon them. It excites wonder, for they 
find it in great contrast to the teaching of the 
scribes. Jesus comes to them as a living teacher, 
fresh from personal contact with eternal truth ; 
not retailing musty traditions, and afraid to assert 
anything except as it is authorized by the learning 
of some rabbi. It is a great change from their 
accustomed experience with the scribes to hear 
one speak who has an eye that can see truth, and 
a courage that is not afraid to utter it. 

''He taught them as one having authority ^ The 
authority meant is the authority of a lawgiver or 
commander. The teacher impressed his audience 
as one who was conscious of a moral kingship and 
a right to be obeyed. He stood, as it were, at 
the very source from which obligation proceeds. 
He does not speak as if his authority to command 
were derived from any outside source ; he does 
not refer his auditors to the means for authenti- 
cating his utterances. It is as if the words which 
he spoke were finally true and compelling. 

Let us observe the method of the divine teacher. 
At the outset we must endeavor to divest our- 
selves of the prepossessions which we have inher- 
ited from centuries of religious history and wor- 
ship, and assume in imagination the attitude of 
this audience on the slopes of the mountain to- 
ward the wonderful Galilean. To us a word from 
the Master is the end of controversy, because we 
accept him as divine. His heavenly rank is taken 
without question as authenticating his truth. But 
to the people who listened to his words this pre- 
supposition is not present. They have, it is true. 



6 MAGNA CHARTA OF THE KINGDOM OF GOD 

heard of his wonderful works, and many reverence 
him as a prophet ; but there is no such putting 
forward of divine claims as to make the burden of 
authority rest on the person or rank of the teacher. 
In fact, we note an absence of personal assertion. 
He has no occasion to begin by explaining who he 
is. While he contrasts himself and so makes him- 
self of equal rank with the teachers of old time by 
his majestic *^But I say unto you,'' he is never- 
theless not calling upon his hearers to believe be- 
cause he says it, but because his message is true. 

And this is the true way to teach moral doc- 
trine, even when it is proclaimed as by authority. 
People must gain an ownership of the truth, 
rather than be silenced by awe of the promulgator. 
When Elihu, with his arrogant confidence in his 
own knowledge, professed to be the truth-revealing 
daysman for whom. Job wished in his perplexity, 
he said: 

Behold my terror shall not make thee afraid, 
Neither shall my pressure be heavy upon thee. 

So likewise Jesus, the eternal Daysman, does not 
begin by making his personal pressure heavy upon 
men. There is no making prominent just now of 
fulfillments of prophecy; there is no resting on 
the endorsement of those who decide on the claims 
of new prophets. In this discourse Jesus does 
not even appeal to his mighty works. There will 
no doubt be occasion for all these means of main- 
taining his standing when other exigencies are to 
be met. But here he simply opens his mouth and 
teaches. To the multitude he is nothing more 



THE TEACHER AND HIS AUTHORITY / 

nor less than a new teacher; and the power of 
his teaching to rule them is to be established by 
its own worthiness of acceptation. His words 
shall stand by the strength of their own inherent 
truthfulness. For the present purpose it matters 
not who the speaker is ; let the truth appear with 
no terror of his to make men afraid. The final 
test of its authority is in itself. 

Truth which thus stands in its own strength is 
not careful to borrow cogency from logic. Indeed, 
its authority is not made stronger by any process 
of reasoning. As we consider this fact we are 
prepared to understand another characteristic of 
the Master's method. He does not argue; he 
proclaims. He does not prove; he asserts. He 
deals in truth rather than in what is called thought. 
It is truth which he sees, and which every soul to 
whom it comes will see as soon as that soul is 
honest with itself. 

Facts or principles that can be made common 
by reasoning are not the highest kind of truth. 
There are truths which come to light only in the 
' direct converse of the soul with eternal reality. 
The obedient heart sees them directly ; and the 
only thing it can do to establish them is to commit 
itself to them and transmute them into living ex- 
perience. Of this character are the distinctive 
truths of Christ's Sermon on the Mount. The 
main thing we have to do in order to enable men 
to receive them, is to awaken their spirits. The 
mists to be cleared away are not the obscurities of 
imperfect logic, but the fumes of unsanctified 
affection and selfish will. Sinful men are indeed 



5 MAGNA CHARTA OF THE KINGDOM OF GOD 

blinded to the truths of the kingdom, but this is 
not because they are such poor reasoners; it is 
because sin blinds their eyes. The prophets of 
God are not occupied with proving divine truths ; 
they are set to proclaim them in the strength of 
the Lord God, and to bring men into obedience to 
their commands. When men's hearts are in the 
right attitude toward God they will see, and not 
till then. 

The truth to which Jesus brings our conscience 
here in this discourse is truth such as we have 
enough kinship with him to recognize when it is 
pointed out to us. In proportion as we enter into 
the relation of obedient sons to God we may see 
it. We are not to acknowledge without seeing, 
and merely because he is in authority and has said 
it ; we may see and know for ourselves when it is 
once pointed out to us. This is the kind of au- 
thority by which he speaks. It is authority pro- 
ceeding from God, but it has the endorsement of 
all that is most like God in ourselves. The ulti- 
mate edicts of our Infinite King, when they are 
discovered, are not found to be arbitrary and out- 
side of us, but intimately blended with our own 
nature, the very law of our being. He who com- 
mands most truly, therefore, is he who testifies 
most clearly of the nature of true humanity; he is 
really a witness to the facts of our highest selves. 
It is, therefore, as a witness that Jesus speaks, even 
when uttering the words of a lawgiver. 

But it should be noticed that he is a peculiar 
kind of witness. He is a witness who derives 
confirmation from our assent. A common eye- 



THE TEACHER AND HIS AUTHORITY 9 

witness to a simple matter of fact is ultimate au- 
thority, because he testifies to matters beyond our 
observation, and which we have no means of veri- 
fying or disputing. But Christ speaks as witness 
to an inward truth which our conscience can and 
must verify when we attain to the point of view 
for it. He does not reason, but he offers us the 
means of attaining to that spiritual elevation where 
we may see for ourselves. The method which has 
sometimes been adopted of figuring out the nature 
of Christ's claims to be the world's teacher, is 
somewhat beside the mark. He has been treated 
purely as a witness to an outside fact. The method 
has been to examine his credibility apart from the 
contents of his testimony ; that is, to establish his 
character as supernatural by means of his miracles, 
and then to rest the truth of his message on his 
competence, thus ascertained, to speak of things 
beyond our sphere. But in fact we are to take 
him and his message together; we are to judge by 
independent, sanctified judgment of the worthiness 
of his doctrine to be received as divine truth. We 
must see not simply that he is supernatural, and 
therefore speaks the truth, but that he is the truth ; 
is the very Word of God made flesh. He is a wit- 
ness, but he is a witness to that which belongs to 
the highest human nature, to all spiritual existence 
which is one ; and we may become so elevated and 
normal in our perceptions that we shall be of that 
higher spirit, and all that is within us shall rise up 
and endorse his doctrine. 

If we are of God, as Jesus elsewhere expresses 
it, we hear God's words. To believe in Christ, in 



lO MAGNA CHARTA OF THE KINGDOM OF GOD 

its highest sense, is to be in that state of obedience 
to God in which we shall see that he is the truth. 
We do not imply doubt or irreverence when we in- 
sist on seeing it for ourselves. We honor the truth 
in this way; for until we have seen it, we have not 
given it a sway over our hearts. 

Yet it is as one having authority that Jesus 
teaches, — not an arbitrary authority, as we have 
seen, but a natural authority, an authority which 
manifests its reality by compelling assent. Let it 
be observed that such deriving of power from the 
assent of the hearer is still authority. To insist 
on seeing and knowing the truth for ourselves is 
not to say that there is no such thing as authority, 
and that we ourselves are the final deciders of the 
truth. It is not to say that the Lord's authorita- 
tive utterance was not necessary, that we should 
have found it all out ourselves if we had been left 
alone. Blunted as are our spiritual perceptions, 
we could not have originated that revelation of 
God's will, even though we can and must give it 
practical validity by recognizing it when it comes. 
The one who originally sees and utters it for us is 
an authority to whose word we must defer by find- 
ing its reasonableness. 

It is by authority that the highest kind of truth 
is propagated. There is always a place for re- 
ligious authority in the world, however intelligent 
and rational the human race may become. The 
nature of the highest truth is such that only the 
purest, most inspired souls perceive it originally, 
and these not by dialectic skill, but by insight and 
singleness of heart. These become prophets and 



THE TEACHER AND HIS AUTHORITY I I 

proclaim that truth for others, who in turn see 
it as they become spiritually raised to its level. 
It is truth which belongs to the higher man 
created within us by the Spirit, truth which be- 
comes truth to us only as that higher man comes 
into existence. It is not surprising that mere ex- 
perience on the world's level should not find it 
out. He who by inspiration of the Spirit lives the 
life of that higher man, proclaims it; he who 
catches a glimpse of that higher self by obedience 
of heart, assents to it. The Saviour who is the 
inspirer, who is that higher man in complete one- 
ness with the eternal truth, is the perfect ex- 
ponent of truth, the Word of God. Because that 
truth belongs to the humanity that is coming to 
be, rather than to that which is, therefore the 
foresharers of that spiritual humanity are the au- 
thorities for the world. 

Religious or ethical knowledge concerns itself 
with what ought to be, or is coming to be, in our 
higher selves. It is the science of that which 
does not exist, or at least exists only in germ, ex- 
cept as humanity creates or develops it by sonship 
to God. The circle of truth thus created consti- 
tutes the laws of a new humanity. Yet these 
laws are not arbitrary, nor out of harmony with 
the laws of our common life. The new man is 
the realization of all manhood in its true meaning, 
and his laws are laws to which we all owe alle- 
giance. Thus, while this truth has power to com- 
pel assent from the candid and obedient every- 
where, the original possession and custody of it 
remains with those who have become new men in 



12 MAGNA CHARTA OF THE KINGDOM OF GOD 

the Spirit. It must therefore always be propa- 
gated by authority. Jesus Christ and those in- 
spired men who derive truth from his Spirit will 
always remain the center of the world's light. 

Of all the teachings of the New Testament the 
sayings of this Sermon on the Mount have per- 
haps carried the most universal conviction with 
them. All that is best in man rises up to confirm 
their truth. Not only to the crowd assembled on 
the slope of Kurn Hattin, but to the whole world 
which comes to read, Jesus speaks as one having 
authority. Some of the master-minds of the world 
have said the Sermon on the Mount was a reve- 
lation to which their whole being bowed in hom- 
age. The sincere heart must yield to such teach- 
ing. It leads our better nature captive. It tells 
us what the man must be to be a perfect man, 
and no candid mind can deny the rightness of the 
delineation. Jesus speaks as one havmg authority. 
The world cannot get rid of his words. 

This self-commending authority is seen in greater 
degree in the Sermon on the Mount than in some 
other parts of Scripture, not because it is the 
highest truth of all, but because it is truth in such 
a form as to speak to the moral imagination. It 
does not entangle the reasoning powers in specu- 
lation, but enlists the heart in the wish for its de- 
fined excellence. It is practical, or ethical. As 
ethical it appeals to our sense for values and for 
conduct; it describes types of excellence which 
we can imagine mankind as realizing, with the 
glowing thought, how good it would be if it were 
so. Hence many a man who has no serious pur- 



THE TEACHER AND HIS AUTHORITY 1 3 

pose of adopting its precepts in their full extent 
for the guidance of his own life, nevertheless ad- 
mires that unique discourse as a glorious picture, 
a masterpiece of moral delineation. It is of such 
character as to commend itself to a candid mind 
as to an artistic sense, even where the admirer is 
not a doer as well as a hearer of the word. For 
this reason, among all the teachings of the Bible 
there are none that command a greater unanimity 
of formal assent than this wonderful discourse. 

But when, on the other hand, men acknowledge 
that they are to do more than admire, and seriously 
contemplate the thought of forming their lives to 
a perfect model, there are sometimes heard objec- 
tions to these exalted precepts. We have seen 
that the teacher's authority derives its strength 
from the assent of the higher man in us. But it 
is not strange that the lower man should now and 
then utter his voice of dissent, for not all the 
morality of this sermon is within his reach, and he 
would gladly rid himself of its condemning require- 
ments. Sometimes our baser self thinks of its 
normal liberty as consisting in the right to abjure 
the control of the higher man, and thus to remain 
base and refractory. But in thus objecting to the 
precepts of Christ the transgressor is by no means 
disproving their real authority over him ; he is 
only acting like those heathen in the second Psalm 
who rage, and in their vain imaginings plan to 
break asunder the Lord's firmly knit bands, and 
cast away his cords from them. 

These objections are founded on that view of 
the divine authority which regards it as proceeding 



14 MAGNA CHARTA OF THE KINGDOM OF GOD 

from a will entirely outside of us. This perfect 
standard of excellence is called an inordinate re- 
quirement. Moral perfection is not conceived of 
as the law of our being, but as the fiat of an arbi- 
trary ruler. With such a conception this Sermon 
on the Mount becomes little other than an instru- 
ment of condemnation, and for God to require 
such perfection of weak and erring mortals, stand- 
ing ready the while to condemn them to perdition 
for failure, seems to be harsh and tyrannical. In 
such an objection it is the lower man that speaks. 
He is in the position of that slothful servant who, 
because he had no enthusiasm to improve his 
opportunities for good, said, ^* Lord, I knew thee, 
that thou art a hard man." 

This objection conceives of righteousness not 
as a goal, but as a price. It grudges the effort for 
it, with the feeling that God ought to let us have 
eternal life at a cheaper rate. It understands the 
morality here taught as the condition of salvation, 
and it is dissatisfied because the condition is so 
lofty and severe. But this is by no means the 
way the great discourse is to be taken. When the 
Saviour says, *'Be ye perfect," he is not stating 
the lowest terms on which salvation may be se- 
cured ; he is rather setting before us what we 
should aim at. This perfection is our goal; we 
shall never be satisfied with anything short of it. 
The sermon teaches, not the morality of those 
who are purchasing salvation and weighing with 
scant balance the price, but the morality of those 
who hunger and thirst after righteousness. Sal- 
vation, instead of being a reward placed in the 



THE TEACHER AND HIS AUTHORITY 1 5 

future and to be secured, is the starting-point and 
spring from which the longing to be righteous 
proceeds. Being ** saved" is a process which in- 
volves trusting God for all the future outcome of 
righteousness without thought of merit, and be- 
cause of his grace; it is a taking of all the Re- 
deemer's worthiness into the heart, so that this is 
our fervent wish, our undivided purpose, which 
nothing can satisfy short of perfect attainment. 
The man who is saved has all this in his heart to 
be and do, before he has actually realized it in his 
conduct. He is not thinking of what shall be 
sufficient to earn heaven ; and yet in the truest 
sense heaven is just what he is seeking, for heaven 
itself is but the perfect ideal attainment on which 
his heart is set. 

One would hardly expect it otherwise than that 
those who take this proclamation of moral princi- 
ples as an arbitrary sovereign's basis for the con- 
demnation of his subjects should be disturbed at 
its severe requirements. But there are those who 
also regard this law as primarily a condemning 
agency, and yet their extreme ideas concerning 
faith lead them with singular infatuation to exult 
over that law as if it were a fallen foe. They say 
that all it was intended for was to show us the 
hopelessness of our attaining perfection, or keeping 
the law, and therefore to warn us to abandon all 
thought of it and trust only to the merits of Christ. 
Good people sometimes even thank God because we 
are ''free from the law," in the sense that it entails 
no obligation on us, since Christ has obeyed it in 
our stead. But such an idea is surely a misunder- 



1 6 MAGNA CHARTA OF THE KINGDOM OF GOD 

standing. Could the loyal heart ever be thankful 
to have no obligation laid upon it to be conformed 
to the divine image? Could the man who loves 
righteousness exult in having the majesty of right- 
eousness done away? Let us not misunderstand 
Jesus so. He is giving us a glimpse of the per- 
fect morality not for us to abandon all thought of 
it, but for us to accept it as our end and purpose. 
He would have us trust him for salvation, it is 
true ; this is the only way of eternal life. But we 
are to trust him and, because he is in our hearts by 
faith, seek to be perfect, not trust him and discard 
the thought. Christ taught in order to be obeyed, 
not in order to alienate men from all purpose of 
obedience by means of impracticable requirements. 
He ministers, not despair of attainment, but 
strength for effort. The triumph of faith, in this 
sordid world which so depresses our ideals, is to 
keep believing that the measure of the perfect 
man is in our reach, and ever striving to realize 
that which we grasp by faith. 

But not only the right of these teachings to 
place themselves as our condemning standard, but 
their power to rule our ordinary life is questioned 
on the ground that, though beautiful as an ideal 
picture, they are nevertheless impracticable and 
visionary. This criticism, like the other, proceeds 
from the basis of our ordinary self, and is domi- 
nated by the feeling of the divine requirements as 
merely external. It thinks of the ordinary earthly 
humanity as if it were to be placed by law in the 
kingdom of heaven as in an external regime ; and 
it foresees a failure in the practical working of its 



THE TEACHER AND HIS AUTHORITY 1/ 

mild precepts among those people whose disposi- 
tion is to evade them. Suppose, for instance, the 
civil oath were abolished in literal obedience to 
the precept, ** Swear not at all," or all opportu- 
nity for divorce were denied, despite the hardness 
of men's hearts which still obtains as in Moses* 
time, would such a forcible setting up of ideal 
practices be beneficial all around ? In short, is 
the morality of the great discourse practicable? 
The very church of God which professes to take 
this sermon as its fundamental law is unfaithful to 
it. And when an earnest and original man like 
Tolstoy undertakes to make it the actual model 
for his life, many are ready to call him a mis- 
guided fanatic. This is held to show that its 
teaching, while ideally beautiful, is impracticable. 

Now it must be acknowledged that, conceived of 
as imposed by an outside power upon ordinary hu- 
man society, much of this morality is impracticable. 
Like all consummate moral law, the great discourse 
outlines conduct for the spiritually quickened man 
to propose to himself, not conduct for a central 
power to enforce upon the unwilling. And, in the 
present stage of human advancement, to take 
these precepts against the oath, against resistance, 
against divorce, as absolute prohibitions rather 
than as pictures of that consummate state of society 
where these imperfect customs shall have dropped 
away of themselves, is to leave society unguarded, 
or to expose the exceptionally conscientious indi- 
vidual to imposition and wrong. But it is as con- 
summate, or ideal truth, that the Sermon on the 
Mount is to be taken. Ideal truth, even truth 

B 



1 8 MAGNA CHARTA OF THE KINGDOM OF GOD 

that is to the unregenerate man impracticable, is 
still compelling truth ; it is none the less strong be- 
cause it is unrealized in general society. If per- 
fection, indeed, were an easily attained goal, it 
would lose all its power as an incentive. The pur- 
suit of it would have no zest ; the enjoyment 
of it would become wearisome. There stands 
the high truth. *' P^orever, O Lord, thy word is 
settled in heaven." We sorrowfully acknowledge 
how often we are unfaithful to it ; but we will by 
no means throw it aside as our ideal. We still say 
there can be no perfect humanity without it. 
Once having been granted a view of the morality 
of God's kingdom, the true sons of God will never 
cease to believe and love and pursue this as the 
very end of their being. 

But it may well be asked how an ideal scheme 
of duty, confessedly impracticable for ordinary so- 
ciety, is expected to relate itself to the human 
conscience. For the unregenerate society, which 
cannot at present realize the final morality, reacts 
upon those who are committed to an ideal obedi- 
ence, interposing conditions hostile to the free ex- 
ercise of their cherished virtues. It seems clear 
that some virtues can flourish in their perfection 
only in their own atmosphere; as long therefore 
as that congenial condition for their development 
does not exist, with how much of self-reproach 
shall the disciple regard his consequent lack of 
perfection ? How shall the spiritual man make 
progress toward planting his ideal on the earth ? 
And how shall the perfect, impracticable morality 
exert its influence on the collective conscience 



THE TEACHER AND HIS AUTHORITY IQ 

SO as to bring to pass its progressive actualiza- 
tion ? 

Moral law in its consummate form, as already 
seen, is for the spiritually quickened man to pro- 
pose to himself as duty. When the conscience of 
the few is brought to recognize its claim, these by 
their conversation in the world become the salt of 
the earth, the salutary influence for the preserva- 
tion of society. And it is everywhere taught in 
the Sermon on the Mount that these must be ex- 
pected to sacrifice themselves in a certain way to 
the welfare of humanity. If they are persecuted 
for righteousness' sake, it is a sign that they are 
of the kingdom of heaven. But in order to bring 
the saving influence of their conduct to bear upon 
society it is not necessary that they should form 
separate communities, with special civil laws, realiz- 
ing by dead lift the ideal system of duty. Such 
separation from the ordinary life entails a loss of 
leavening power. Nor is it necessary that disci- 
ples should live in * a state of rebellion against 
those civil institutions which fafl to enforce ideal 
conduct, nor in a state of insurgent compact to 
bring those institutions to their ideal standard by 
the omnipotent ballot. It is a question whether 
civil enactment can ever aim at the same mark as 
moral law, the primal purpose of the one being 
to afford guidance to the good, of the other to 
restrain the bad. Living then with immediate 
reference to the will of Christ, and yet in ordinary 
civil relations and with sinful people, the disciple 
may recognize the necessity of conforming out- 
wardly to a lower standard, — in taking the oath. 



20 MAGNA CHARTA OF THE KINGDOM OF GOD 

for example, or in defending himself, — not as a 
lapse from imperative duty, but as the deprivation 
of an ideal privilege. He may enter into his civil 
relations without condemnation, and yet with re- 
gret at his earthly limitations. For the Saviour's 
doctrine abolishing the oath and the privilege of 
self-defense is not an absolute prohibition, but a 
prohibition so far as practicable, and above all a 
picture in imperative form of that state of society 
where these fall away of themselves. And he 
who seeks the perfect kingdom of heaven in the 
spirit of hunger and thirst after righteousness is 
not driven by fear of guilt but by longing for un- 
attained blessings. In one way or another the 
ideal truth, lifted up as an entrancing vision, will 
produce unrest in the humanity whose eyes are 
opened to it, until its altitude is finally reached, 
and its heavenly treasure possessed. 

We see then the authority with which the divine 
teacher spake. That authority depends on no his- 
torical research of ours ; the truth of his utter- 
ances is not vitally involved in the question 
whether Christ wrought miracles or not, not in 
the question what he is in relation to prophecy or 
to the Trinity. Once uttered, that truth com- 
mends itself to the inner perception of every 
candid man. We know that the things which he 
commands are ideally and eternally right. And if 
our lower self, clamoring for the right to remain 
unsubdued and earthly, calls the eternal claims in- 
ordinate, or feels an ideal world to be impractica- 
ble, such stopping of the spiritual ear by no 
means silences the voice of God. It is none the 



THE TEACHER AND HIS AUTHORITY 21 

less ours, on pain of alienation from God, to make 
this eternal standard of duty our striving. In the 
spirit that is awakened to God's voice there can be 
no rest short of this altitude of perfection. The 
moral world will always be in unsatisfied move- 
ment until it reaches that goal. Bring your heart 
therefore into harmony with it. Make it your 
cherished ideal. This is salvation — when the law 
of God is our dearest purpose, instead of our con- 
demning censor. With this high striving in our 
heart we have the evidence that we are united to 
Him who perfectly fulfilled this law. And with 
this in our heart we are allied to that which is of 
eternal significance and power. ** Heaven and 
earth shall pass away, but my words shall not pass 
away.'' 



II 



THE MORALITY WHICH IS THE 
WORLD'S SAVOR AND LIGHT 



Matt. .5 .• 2-16 



II 



And he opened his mouth and taught them, saying, 

Blessed are the poor in spirit : for theirs is the kingdom of 
heaven. 

Blessed are they that mourn : for they shall be comforted. 

Blessed are the meek : for they shall inherit the earth. 

Blessed are they that hunger and thirst after righteousness : for 
they shall be filled. 

Blessed are the merciful : for they shall obtain mercy. 

Blessed are the pure in heart : for they shall see God. 

Blessed are the peacemakers : for they shall be called sons of 
God. 

Blessed are they that have been persecuted for righteousness' 
sake : for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. Blessed are ye when 
men shall reproach you, and persecute you, and say all manner 
of evil against you falsely, for my sake. Rejoice, and be exceed- 
ing glad : for great is your rew^ard in heaven : for so persecuted 
they the prophets which were before you. 

Ye are the salt of the earth : but if the salt have lost its savour, 
wherewith shall it be salted ? It is henceforth good for nothing, 
but to be cast out and trodden under foot of men. Ye are the 
light of the world. A city set on a hill cannot be hid. Neither 
do men light a lamp and put it under the bushel, but on the stand ; 
and it shineth unto all that are in the house. Even so let your 
light shine before men, that they may see your good works, and 
glorify your Father which is in heaven. 

The idea that was in the air was, " the kingdom 
of heaven.'' People were looking for this kingdom, 
and expecting great blessings to come to the 
chosen nation on account of it. John had for 
months been preparing for it by bis preaching in 
the wilderness. His message had 
been, *' Repent, for the kingdom of Matt. 3 : 2 
heaven is at hand." After Jesus 

25 



26 MAGNA CHARTA OF THE KINGDOM OF GOD 

had been baptized he himself took 
Matt. 4 : 17 up the Same message, ''The king- 
dom of heaven is at hand." There 
was the general feeling that some great and desir- 
able development in the world's history was about 
to take place. Enthusiasm was smouldering and 
ready to burst into flame at any moment. Patri- 
otic pride, sense of the disgrace of the chosen na- 
tion being subject to heathen Rome, religious en- 
thusiasm, as well as a deeper spiritual hunger 
hardly understood, all wrought to produce a pres- 
sure of expectation that could hardly be held back. 
Jesus described this state of feeling 
Matt. II : 12 when he said, ''From the days of 
John the Baptist until now, the 
kingdom of heaven suffereth violence, and men of 
violence take it by force," It was the kingdom of 
heaven on w^hich the eager common people of Gal- 
ilee were fixing their hopes. Any mention of that 
kingdom was sufficient to set expectation all aglow. 
Only give them an idea what it was to enter that 
kingdom and be in a position to share its benefits, 
and they were ready to press into it. 

This Sermon on the Mount has been called the 
fundamental law of the kingdom of heaven. And 
for those who understand what is meant by the 
kingdom of heaven this is a most appropriate de- 
scription of it. But Jesus could not so designate 
it at this stage of affairs by name. To use the 
name which was thus on everybody's lips would 
be to awaken that whole accumulation of enthusi- 
asm and set it ablaze. But to make such an en- 
thusiasm too intense at this stao-e of thino:s would 



THE world's savor AND LIGHT 2/ 

be unfortunate, for it was mainly an unspiritual 
enthusiasm. People did not understand what the 
kingdom of heaven was. It was a greater idea 
than they had grasped. It meant briefly that 
state of things in the individual heart in which the 
person is ruled by God himself. This meant his 
trusting God, his seeing God with the spiritual 
eye, his obeying God of his own glad choice. But 
for the bulk of the people the kingdom meant 
some visible organization, some commonwealth, 
some pomp of external power and glory. Even if 
the setting up of the kingdom was not under- 
stood to mean the overthrow of the Roman power, 
and the universal dominion of the Jewish nation, 
it could hardly help being understood as some 
outward organization, for spiritual purposes at 
least. Now to name this sermon at the outset 
the law of the kingdom, would be to call together 
a band of unspiritual adherents at once. They 
would inevitably and immediately fasten upon 
some earthly idea of that kingdom and proceed to 
carry it out. 

In spiritual matters it is often necessary to de- 
scribe a thing before we can venture to use its 
commonly received name. This is especially true 
of anything which calls out people's enthusiasm. 
The things of God's kingdom are greater than any 
of us have fully understood. They are heavenly 
things which, though they stand on the earth, 
tower up to an infinity of meaning toward heaven, 
in proportion as the spirit can comprehend them. 
But these things receive their common names, and 
those names inevitably acquire a conventional sig- 



28 MAGNA CHARTA OF THE KINGDOM OF GOD 

nificance. People are fired by the name, when 
often it is desirable that they should not blaze up, 
as it were, too soon, but should hold still and learn 
more deeply the precious meaning involved in the 
name. When a man is acting on an idea he is no 
longer listening for that idea. It is often neces- 
sary that our over-eager followers be held still to 
complete the act of getting instructions, before 
they run on the errand of doing their master's 
bidding. 

In the formation of opinions especially, mere in- 
dolence of thought leads people often to conjure 
with names as if they were the ultimate realities 
concerned. There is a power in conventional 
terms to arrest the process of thought, especially 
when those terms arouse partisan feeling. People 
catch the cry and run with it before they have 
caught it aright. This was especially likely to 
happen with those to whom the Saviour was 
speaking at this time. Just as we have to talk 
about the various isms under which people range 
themselves, or against which they have strong 
prejudices, without naming them, as we have to 
take pains sometimes that our hearers shall not 
know what is the conventional thing we are talk- 
ing about until they have had time to catch our 
meaning, so Jesus had to be careful that this idea 
of the kingdom of heaven, which was all ready, 
should not be advanced prematurely. The eager 
people must learn its nature without knowing what 
conventional thing it was whose nature they were 
learning. By and by its name could be revealed, 
but not until they had gotten the thing. 



THE WORLD S SAVOR AND LIGHT 29 

So Jesus in this Sermon on the Mount sets forth 
the fundamental law of the new kingdom ; but it 
is not formally a law, nor is the mention of the 
kingdom made prominent. He simply goes on to 
describe the ideally good man. He points out 
who are blessed. He describes, if we may so say 
it, the best thing in character, what kind of peo- 
ple they are who are nearest to the center of the 
world's spiritual life, who are fitted to impart good- 
ness to the world rather than receive goodness 
from the world, who are the very salt of the earth, 
giving it a savor, the light of the world shining in 
its darkness and revealing the God who is their 
own indwelling light. 

It is touching men's spiritual nature by awaken- 
ing them to the desire for an ideal goodness. 
Righteousness is here presented of a high enough 
intensity to be inspiring. Men are saved by ap- 
preciating. It is thus that Christ saves men : 
" Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ " means simply, 
appreciate Christ, Righteousness at the ordinary 
level would be hardly of high enough potency to 
be inspiring ; but when the righteousness of those 
who are blessed ia being like Christ in the world 
is so presented as to awaken men's sense of its 
worth and enlist in its cause all the active powers, 
it becomes a mighty saving influence in the heart 
of the appreciative. 

Jesus first describes a certain morality, and then 
specifies what kind of people this will make of 
those who practise it. They shall be the salt of 
the earth and the light of the world, the positive 
leavening power in society. The relation of his 



30 MAGNA CHARTA OF THE KINGDOM OF GOD 

kingdom to the world is here indicated. It is not 
the whole of society, but its leaven. The morality 
he describes is a certain concentrated form of 
goodness, the only perfect and consummate kind ; 
and yet always the leaven rather than the leavened 
lump. It is a morality which could not be en- 
forced by power, even by an infinitely autocratic 
sovereign. He pictures the saving or savoring 
element in society, rather than society itself, which 
element is always small in bulk, perhaps we may 
say too concentrated to be the whole of the world ; 
even when the whole lump is leavened it will be 
something different from this, something with 
passive, inert elements which constitute the main 
body of society, on which the positive elements 
act. And these act not by any forcing of their 
influence, or seeking to wield the power of organiza- 
tion for that special end, but simply by being what 
they are, by letting their light shine. The shining 
light is the impelling power. 

We might easily spend a long time on each one 
of these Beatitudes and yet fail to point out all 
their richness of meaning. I must content my- 
self, however, with merely summarizing them. 
Considered as traits of character to aim at, these 
descriptions of goodness are a wonderful inspira- 
tion. But they do not describe the traits that the 
world would agree to adopt as conditions of suc- 
cess. They are not such moral qualities as one 
would selfishly covet. And yet he who sincerely 
wishes to be ruled by the will of God may recog- 
nize in them just the qualities calculated to give 
God's will an ascendency in his heart. 



THE world's savor AND LIGHT 3 I 

First of all, our Lord sa3^s the poor 
in spirit are blessed. Have we not ji^^^^ 5 . 3 
here at the very start a teaching so 
unexpected and unique as to bear the stamp of 
divinity ? We should thoughtlessly consider him 
fortunate who has the sense of a wealth of spiritual 
gifts and power. He who feels -as if he abounded 
in good things, who has much to congratulate 
himself upon in the way of spiritual possessions 
— he is the one whose good fortune the most 
godly of us would like to share. The thing we 
aim at is self-satisfaction in regard to the things 
of God ; and we often consider it a great mark of 
our backwardness because we are so discontented 
with our poor attainment. We feel poor and lean ; 
there surely must be something wrong. And yet 
the Saviour fixes upon this very feeling of spiritual 
poverty as the sign of one's belonging to the king- 
dom of heaven. And his divine insight is right. 
For if the kingdom of heaven is likeness to God, 
then it is something infinite, something that we 
shall never exhaust by our finite attainments. 
He who feels rich, so that he has no disposition 
to seek anything farther, is self-convicted of having 
lost all sense of the infinite. He is full ; he has 
stopped his progress toward the goodness of God. 
But a man feels poor in spirit because he has the 
sense of how much there is to rise through before 
he shall be perfect. He feels poor just in propor- 
tion as he has that communication with God by 
which his soul may grow rich. 

*^ ^ Blessed are the poor m spirit! . . There is 
nothing in all ethical teaching more radical than 



32 MAGNA CHARTA OF THE KINGDOM OF GOD 

this same sweet beatitude. It requires thorough 
work of any man who would receive it. . . One 
of the first things we shall have to do will be to 
heap up all our pride and pretense, and then to 
kindle in our souls a hot fire of wrath, and to burn 
up those shams and delusions which we love. 
Throw it all in, — our pride of ancestry, of position, 
of attainment, of money, of talent, of social posi- 
tion, — every branch and fruit of our pretense ; burn 
it all up : and then over the ashes of our pride we 
must pray for a new heart, simple enough and sin- 
cere like Christ's, to own a brother in the humblest 
man we meet, and to receive a word of the Lord 
in the least duty which any moment may bring to 
us from the will of the Father. Become poor in 
spirit — my soul but another human emptiness to 
be filled, maybe, from some divine fullness ! My 
life but as the lowly banks through which some 
renewing grace may flow like a stream ! " ^ 

Akin to this is the principle that 
Ver. 4 they who mourn are blessed, because 
they shall be comforted. The mourn- 
ing, rather than the rejoicing, is the unsatisfied state 
which tends to something better. It is not a 
mourning over an evil done, but for a good un- 
attained. It is worthy of note that in these Be- 
atitudes the Saviour locates the blessedness just 
on the hither side of satisfaction ; the blessed state 
has the prospect of better before it. Blessedness 
is dynamic rather than static ; it is force and move- 
ment toward a higher state. There is a tenderly 

^ Newman Smyth, "Personal Creeds," p. 39. 



THE world's savor AND LIGHT 33 

chastening and elevating power in 

sadness which the Saviour fully rec- Ecd. 7 : 2 

ognizes. ** It is better to go to the 

house of mourning, than to go to the house of 

feasting," said the Preacher long before. 

But again, the Saviour says the 
meek are blessed because they shall Yej.^ 5 
inherit the earth ; and here also 
we find teaching quite unlike the practical belief 
of this world. It is a truth, how- 
ever, which was discovered by the Ps. 37 : 11 
psalmist. But the strong, grasp- 
ing, pushing world does not believe it ; and 
when we see the apparent conditions of success 
in this world we are often tempted to doubt 
the truth ourselves. The meek are those who 
do not take pains to assert themselves, nor to 
push their way. They are inclined to yield ; they 
will give up personal preference rather than be 
offensively forward. Now such are just the ones 
whom we expect to see pushed to the wall. That 
they should succeed and gain a supremacy is just 
in antagonism to the law which the evolutionary 
theory has formulated in regard to lower things, 
namely, that the species of animals, and human in- 
stitutions even, have progressed because only the 
strongest, or the fittest, have survived ; while the 
weaker races have been crowded out in the 
struggle for existence. We sometimes deny the 
Saviour's truth when we say, sagaciously as we 
think : ** I tell you, if a man is to get along in this 
world he must put himself forward a little. If he 
doesn't blow his own trumpet, nobody else will 

c 



34 MAGNA CHARTA OF THE KINGDOM OF GOD 

blow it for him. He will get crowded and starved 
out unless he is on hand for his share." So it 
seems when we look at it from the level of mere 
worldly sagacity. But from the platform of the 
kingdom of God, how different. The meek, says 
the Saviour, shall inherit the earth. He does not 
even postpone their reward to the heavenly world ; 
as if, after enough of jostling and suffering here, 
they shall be recompensed in a different and 
higher realm. He promises that they shall inherit 
this scene of the survival of the fittest. I suppose 
he means, what many a meek soul has found true, 
that the quiet and unselfish have a more real 
ownership in the earth — get more of the real good 
of it, find it ministering far more to their highest 
enjoyment — than the greatest of those who, with 
their grasping and pushing, can say they own vast 
tracts of it, and yet are subject to the pangs of 
insatiable avarice, slighted vanity, and disappointed 
ambition. To inherit or own the earth, in its real 
sense, is to make it minister to our happiness and 
highest welfare. But many who are called rich in 
the possession of it make it their master to over- 
bear all their spiritual excellence and destroy their 
souls. Of this ownership, which consists in real 
enjoyment and mastership, the meek may easily 
be seen to have the lion's share, even though they 
have to work hard and subject themselves to a 
constant round of small economies to get on in life. 
But Jesus goes on to show how 
Ver. 6 personal righteousness stands re- 
lated to our blessedness. He does 
not say, Blessed are the righteous ; for if this 



THE world's savor AND LIGHT 35 

were the extent of the promise many a man who 
is poor in spirit might feel himself excluded from 
it. But he says, Blessed are those who want 
righteousness, who hunger and thirst after it, 
for they shall be filled. Here again he describes 
righteousness as something of infinite reach, some- 
thing that no one has exhaustively attained. Those 
who count themselves fully righteous are those 
who have lost sight of the infinite 
reach of true goodness. '' None is Mark lo : i8 
good save one, even God," said our 
Lord. These self-approving people have got to a 
certain point in goodness, and stop there satisfied, 
like the Pharisees, Such righteousness is only 
conventional ; it is simply what men agree to call 
righteousness. We talk about character as the 
important thing ; but while character is an excel- 
lent thing to value and long for, it is apt to be an 
unfortunate subject for self-consciousness or pride. 
He who professes absolute righteousness is a 
Pharisee. So Jesus pronounces no blessing on 
the full-grown righteous, for only the deceived 
would call themselves of that class. He congrat- 
ulates those who hunger and thirst after right- 
eousness, who will not rest in any attainment short 
of conformity to the infinite goodness. Such shall 
evermore rejoice in fruition; the desire for right- 
eousness is a desire that heaven itself exists in 
order to fill. 

Then the merciful are pronounced 
blessed, for they shall obtain mercy. Y^r. 7 
It is within a man's own choice 
whether he shall be forbearingly and mercifully 



36 MAGNA CHARTA OF THE KINGDOM OF GOD 

dealt with by his fellow-men or not. If he is him- 
self exacting and harsh, he but invites exacting 

treatment from others. ''They that 
Matt. 26 : 52 take the sword shall perish with the 

sword." But if the person treats 
his fellow-men with consideration and forbearance, 
he is most likely to meet with mercy when he is 
himself in trouble. 

It is only to the merciful that the first access to 
the mercy of God is possible. There is accept- 
ance only for the forgiving spirit. We rejoice in 
the doctrine of grace, that is, the principle that 
salvation comes not by our works or our merit, but 
by the favor of a pardoning God. Now the at- 
tainment of that favor is possible only for the one 

who is merciful himself. Jesus em- 
Matt. 6 : 12 phasizes this over and over again. 

He encourages us in the Model 
Prayer to ask for forgiveness only to this extent — 
as we forgive our debtors. This particular peti- 
tion is the only one on which he makes a comment 

at the end of the prayer. He says, 
Mau. 6 : 15 '^ If ye forgive not men their tres- 
passes, neither will your Father for- 
give your trespasses.'' Then in another place, 
when promising the fullest blessings in answer to 

prayer, he adds, '' And whensoever 
Mark II : 25 yc Stand praying, forgive, if ye have 

aught against any one ; that your 
Father also which is in heaven may forgive you 
your trespasses." Not simply boundless aspira- 
tion after perfection, but boundless toleration and 
mercy toward others' imperfection, belongs to the 



THE world's savor AND LIGHT 37 

truly blessed. The two do not always exist to- 
gether. Often the most zealous and aspiring are 
the most intolerant. The Pharisees, who held the 
common people accursed, were the idealists among 
the Jews. Jesus alone was perfectly an inhabitant 
of heaven and an inhabitant of earth, — consumed 
with zeal for God's house, and yet a friend of 
publicans and sinners, — -but he teaches his fol- 
lowers to seek their blessedness along this same 
line of God-manhood. Hunger for righteousness ; 
make the highest heaven your home; but be 
merciful and forgiving to those who do not desire 
righteousness, and who may even wrong you. 

*' This forgiving spirit is itself many virtues in 
one. The man who can truly and effectually for- 
give, the man who can be a reconciling power in a 
community, is no weak man, or man of a single 
virtue, or mere instance of good nature. He 
must also be a just man — a man who sees what is 
right as clear as the day, a man who wants always 
to get the right thing done ; a man who will not 
cover up evil, or hide iniquity, or say peace when 
there is no peace. It requires a high and even 
rare combination of virtues to be peacemaker — not 
a peaceable soul, but a maker of peace ; and to ex- 
ercise the spirit of forgiveness in any genuine and 
fruitful way is no child's play at life." ^ 

Then the most glorious of all the 
promises is given to the pure in Yqy, 8 
heart — they shall see God. We 
come toward heaven in this world only as we see 

^ Newman Smyth, *' Personal Creeds, " p. 115. 



38 MAGNA CHARTA OF THE KINGDOM OF GOD 

God, that is, only as his will reveals itself to us as 
our end. It is not by watching how others do, or 
by conforming to rules, that we learn the true way 
of life. It is not simply by experience. It is by 
intuition of the righteousness that reaches to an 
infinite height — by looking at God in fact — that 
any true goodness is comprehended. But such 
comprehension comes by loving, by having the 
whole heart enlisted in the thing. The heart be- 
comes an eye to see, and it will not see unless it 
be single. It must be pure in its love, that is, un- 
mixed with anything baser. A love that is mixed 
with selfish considerations, trying to hold on to the 
good-will of the world while it seeks the favor of 

God, never can see God. The Jews 
Matt. 21 : 25-27 who mingled their convictions of 

truth with fear of the people could 
not even tell whether John's baptism was earthly 

or heavenly in its origin. The 
Isa. 29 : 13, 14 prophet said of the old Testament 

Jews, that because their fear of the 
Lord was a commandment of men that had been 
learned by rote, even though the Lord proceeded 
to do a marvelous work and a wonder, the wisdom 
of their wise men should perish, and the under- 
standing of their prudent men should be hid. 
With a mere memorized religion they could not 
see anything spiritual. Only by the heart, and by 
a pure heart, do men see the infinite goodness. 

Then the peacemakers are blessed 
Yqt, 9 ii^ being called sons of God. It 

seems as if Jesus took pains to 
group a trait which despises the earth and looks 



THE world's savor AND LIGHT 39 

to heaven by the side of one which concihates 
men and promotes peace on the earth. The aspir- 
ing are placed by the side of the merciful ; the 
single of heart who dwell in the very sight of God 
are placed next to those who labor for peace among 
men. The zealous and those who care not for 
the opinions of men may be son^ of God ; but it is 
the peacemakers who get the reputation of being 
sons of God. And it is worth while to have that 
reputation. Do not think that it counts for noth- 
ing to have men regard you as one in whom God 
himself dwells and works. It is not well for even 
our good to be evil spoken of. So Jesus wisely 
balances one trait of character, and guards against 
its fanatical excess, by pointing out the comple- 
mentary trait. It is consistent with the most 
rigid adherence to principle, and the most aspiring 
unworldiness, to be merciful and conciliatory even 
among imperfect and wicked men. And it is the 
peaceful and conciliatory side of the character, 
after all, that gets for any one the reputation of 
being a seeker after heavenly attainments. 

Finally, Jesus pronounces those 
blessed who are persecuted for right- Ygt, 10-12 
eousness' sake. These get their idea 
of righteousness from their insight into eternal 
truth. They always seem out of joint with the 
formal righteousness of the unspiritual. Their 
righteousness has an unexpected look, like that of 
Christ, of whom it was prophesied, 
**He hath no form nor comeliness ; isa. 53 : 2, 3 
and when we see him, there is no 
beauty that we should desire him. . . As one 



40 MAGNA CHARTA OF THE KINGDOM OF GOD 

from whom men hide their face he was despised, 
and we esteemed him not." The superficial and 
conventional do not look for the roots of right- 
eousness ; they only judge by its exterior, and 
commend simply what men generally expect of a 
righteous man. And when a man has his springs 
in God he is too near the heart of things, too orig- 
inal and first-handed, for the inattentive world to 
understand him. He is essentially on the ground 
that the prophets occupied — those who saw God's 
will and goodness for themselves and spoke just 
as his Spirit prompted. They were persecuted, as 
will be many a sincere and original Christian who 
derives his righteousness directly from the primal 
source. So the fact that men are persecuted for 
righteousness' sake will be a sign of their blessed- 
ness. It shows them to be of the kingdom of 
heaven. And if this persecution should befall 
Christ's hearers themselves, let them rejoice ; for 
they but experience the treatment which the 
prophets themselves experienced. 

This is a very brief indication of the riches of 
truth contained in these Beatitudes. The blessed 
man, the ideal man here portrayed, is at once in 
nearest, freshest contact with heaven and eternal 
realities, and in truest sympathy with whatever 
makes for mercy and peace on the earth. He 
really inherits the earth in his meekness, while he 
is even persecuted for his faithfulness to inward 
light. 

Now observe how accessible Jesus makes this 
blessedness. We certainly cannot say that this 
part of the Sermon on the Mount is set forth sim- 



THE world's savor AND LIGHT 4 1 

ply as a formidable law which is meant to do noth- 
ing but produce a knowledge of sin. 
We say doctrinally that the law is Rom. 3 -. 20 
given to show us how sinful we are, 
and thus cause us to fly to Christ. This is some- 
times taken to mean that the law is meant to show 
how high and impossible are the attainments of 
righteousness, so that we may despair of it and 
seek grace. But do these Beatitudes labor to 
make righteousness appear unattainable ^ They 
certainly set forth a righteousness far more inward 
and spiritual than any righteousness of law. But 
are not the traits described the most directly at- 
tainable of all by the penitent and humble heart ? 
The characteristics of those who are poor in spirit, 
who mourn, who are meek, who hunger and thirst, 
who are merciful, who make peace, who are sin- 
cere of heart, who are disliked for their righteous- 
ness — -cannot any humble heart hope for a share 
in such virtues.'^ If Jesus had said, ** Blessed are 
the brave," he would have been pointing to a trait 
which only those of a certain natural disposition 
could hope to have. If he had said, ' Blessed are 
the respectable," he would have been pointing to 
something dependent on social conditions. If he 
had said, '' Blessed are the faultless," he would 
have been promoting the self-deception of prig- 
gishness, or abandoning people to despair. Many 
things in which we count men fortunate are possi- 
ble only to those who begin with certain advan- 
tages of nurture, heredity, education, leisure, or 
opulence. They are the righteousness of a class. 
But Jesus makes blessedness accessible to all. 



42 MAGNA CHARTA OF THE KINGDOM OF GOD 

The virtues here described are virtues which any 
one may begin to have, as it were, on small capi- 
tal. He need not be fortunately born, educated, 
or endowed, nor have a command of his time. He 
need only be poor in spirit, unsatisfied, ardent for 
righteousness, merciful. Any one can be that by 
penitence and humility. The only gate to such 
blessedness is the strait and narrow one of repent- 
ance. 

Again, these are virtues which a man may pro- 
fess without presumption or vanity. It does a man 
no harm to think of himself as poor in spirit, as 
sad, as a-hungered for righteousness, or even as 
meek and merciful. There is no danger of conceit 
in making a profession of such goodness. On the 
other hand, when a person professes himself fault- 
less, see what a ridiculous figure he cuts and how 
much harm he does himself. He who says, ** I 
have not sinned for so many months," is deplora- 
bly blind as to what true righteousness is. In the 
same way, when a man professes to have attained 
the holiness of perfect quiescent trust and passive 
will-lessness, he is very apt to do his soul, and 
especially his influence, a harm thereby. Even 
when one professes the special presence and favor- 
itism of God, men are inclined to look at his hands 
and see whether they are clean. There are virtues 
which one may strive after and yet which one may 
not safely profess to have attained. The conscious 
possession of them brings with it only conceit, or 
the cessation of progress and usefulness. 

And yet Christianity is a profession. We are 
expected to profess to have something which the 



THE world's savor AND LIGHT 43 

sinful world has not. Is there any good thing we 
can profess to have without harming ourselves ? 
Is there any excellence we can persuade ourselves 
that we possess without conceit ? Do we not find 
it here in the Beatitudes ? Here is something 
which the humble soul may know it has, and in 
which it may rejoice with exceeding joy, and yet 
continue humble. A man may, without harm to 
his spirit, say, **I know that I am poor, that I 
mourn for better things, that I shrink from push- 
ing myself in comparison with others, that I for- 
give everybody from my heart." And the Saviour 
seems to say, -'Very well; know it, rejoice in it, 
and be blessed! " 

So the Saviour knows that he is 
ministering to no self-conceit when Yev. 13 
he goes on to say to such ones, ** Ve 
are tJie salt of the earths By the '* ye " he does 
not mean simply the disciples who have been des- 
ignated by name, but those who have taken these 
Beatitudes home to their hearts and can say, *^ It 
is my purpose to be that; I am that by God's 
grace." To say to a man, *' You are the very salt 
of the earth, you are the hght of the world," would 
make him insufferably conceited if such a compli- 
ment referred to such virtues as faultlessness, 
courage, or dignity. But to his blessed ones Jesus 
can unqualifiedly say, " Ye are the salt of the 
earth," and know that their very consciousness of 
the possession will minister to their humility. 
The more they take that kind of excellence home 
to themselves, the more humble and careful they 
will be. 



44 MAGNA CHARTA OF THE KINGDOM OF GOD 

Such are the very source of acceptable savor in 
society. Where do we go to get saltness? To 
the salt itself. We do not have to take pains to 
salt our salt first ; it is essentially salt, its saltness 
is its very nature. Take away its saltness and it 
is good for nothing. Now the kind of blessed 
men that Jesus has described, who get their im- 
pulse to good from heaven itself, do not derive 
their quality of goodness from the world; they 
give of their quaUty to the world. The man 
whose salt has to be salted from the world is of 
no good at all. Jesus means to say, ^' Whatever 
exists in society to give it taste and palatableness 
comes from you. You dwell nearest the center of 
saving power. Whatever exists in society to give 
it light comes from you. From you the rays 
stream out. You are not illumined by the world ; 
you illumine the world. Think of yourselves then 
as those on whom the world depends for savor and 
light. Let it give you a sense of your responsi- 
bility. If you do not give light, where shall they 
get it ? If your salt have no taste, how shall it be 
salted } " Upon us, my brethren of the Beati- 
tudes, rests the duty of saving and enlightening 
the world. 

Finally, the blessed man is con- 
Ver. 14-16 spicuous. He cannot have even 
these humble qualities which Jesus 
describes and nobody know it. People do not put 
a lamp under a bushel. An extinguisher is a poor 
instrument by which to promote illumination. A 
city set on a hill cannot be hid. And these quali- 
ties which a man may safely profess he may sav- 



THE world's savor AND LIGHT 45 

ingly display. As there is no conceit in the con- 
scious possession of them, so there is no ostenta- 
tion in the determined exhibition of them. In 
fact, such blessedness does its good in the world 
by being observed. It becomes an inspiration ; 
men are attracted by it; they are led, not to praise 
the human possessors, but to glorify the Father 
in heaven. So if we let our light shine in this 
way, not forcing it nor displacing the normal ac- 
cents of our example for the sake of display, but 
simply being naturally our blessed selves, it will 
hide us in the glory of the God who shines around 
us ; it will win the souls of men to the infinite sav- 
ing Love. So let your light shine. 

Jesus thus awakens men's spirits by way of their 
blessedness. He sets them to looking forward to 
what their value is ideally. His law is not the 
prescribing of rules, but the opening of heaven to 
our sight. He sets men to aspiring and reaching 
upward. He describes a blessedness that men 
may at once persuade themselves that they have. 
He does not try to make men condemn themselves 
for not having it, but makes it so accessible that 
the self-condemnation is swallowed up in joyous 
sense of possession. And yet such possession is 
open only to penitence. The message, '' Repent, 
for the kingdom of heaven is at hand," comes be- 
fore the Beatitudes in all Christian experience. 
The making of the kingdom accessible is no 
cheapening of the terms of salvation. It calls in 
the humble and penitent, though he be a publican, 
and excludes the Pharisee. Blessed is the man 
who is thus won to goodness. 



46 MAGNA CHARTA OF THE KINGDOM OF GOD 

How wonderful is this way of setting forth the 
law of the kingdom of God ! Who but a divine 
being would thus have known how to win men to 
their own salvation ? May the Spirit of God write 
these Beatitudes on our heart. 



Ill 



RELATION OF THE MORALITY OF 
ENTHUSIASM TO LAW 



Matt 5 : 17-48 



Ill 



Think not that I came to destroy the law or the prophets : I 
came not to destroy, but to fulfil. For verily I say unto you, Till 
heaven and earth pass away, one jot or one tittle shall in no wise 
pass away from the law, till all things be accomplished. Whoso- 
ever therefore shall break one of these least commandments, and 
shall teach men so, shall be called least in the kingdom of heaven : 
but whosoever shall do and teach them, he shall be called great 
in the kingdom of heaven. For I say unto you, that except your 
righteousness shall exceed the righteousness of the scribes and 
Pharisees, ye shall in no wise enter into the kingdom of heaven. 

Ye have heard that it was said to them of old time. Thou shalt 
not kill ; and whosoever shall kill shall be in danger of the judge- 
ment : but I say unto you, that every one who is angry with his 
brother shall be in danger of the judgement ; and whosoever shall 
say to his brother, Raca, shall be in danger of the council ; and 
whosoever shall say, Thou fool, shall be in danger of the hell of 
fire. If therefore thou art offering thy gift at the altar, and there 
rememberest that thy brother hath aught against thee, leave there 
thy gift before the altar, and go thy way, first be reconciled to thy 
brother, and then come and offer thy gift. Agree with thine ad- 
versary quickly, whiles thou art with him in the way ; lest haply 
the adversary deliver thee to the judge, and the judge deliver thee 
to the officer, and thou be cast into prison. Verily I say unto 
thee. Thou shalt by no means come out thence, till thou have paid 
the last farthing. 

Ye have heard that it was said. Thou shalt not commit adul- 
tery : but I say unto you, that every one that looketh on a woman 
to lust after her hath committed adultery with her already in his 
heart. And if thy right eye causeth thee to stumble, pluck it out, 
and cast it from thee : for it is profitable for thee that one of thy 
members should perish, and not thy whole body be cast into hell. 
And if thy right hand causeth thee to stumble, cut it off, and cast 
it from thee : for it is profitable for thee that one of thy members 
should perish, and not thy whole body go into hell. It was said 
also. Whosoever shall put away his wife, let him give her a writing 
of divorcement : but I say unto you, that every one that putteth 
away his wife, saving for the cause of fornication, maketh her an 

D 49 



50 MAGNA CHARTA OF THE KINGDOM OF GOD 

adulteress : and whosoever shall marry her when she is put away 
committeth adultery. 

Again, ye have heard that it was said to them of old time, Thou 
shalt not forswear thyself, but shalt perform unto the Lord thine 
oaths : but I say unto you, Swear not at all ; neither by the 
heaven, for it is the throne of God : nor by the earth, for it is the 
footstool of his feet ; nor by Jerusalem, for it is the city of the 
great King. Neither shalt thou swear by thy head, for thou canst 
not make one hair white or black. But let your speech be, Yea, 
yea ; Nay, nay : and w^hatsoever is more than these is of the evil 
one. 

Ye have heard that it was said, An eye for an eye, and a tooth 
for a tooth : but I say unto you, Resist not him that is evil : but 
whosoever smiteth thee on thy right cheek, turn to him the other 
also. And if any man would go to law with thee, and take away 
thy coat, let him have thy cloke also. And whosoever shall com- 
pel thee to go one mile, go with him twain. Give to him that 
asketh thee, and from him that would borrow of thee turn not 
thou away. 

Ye have heard that it was said, Thou shalt love thy neighbour, 
and hate thine enemy : but I say unto you, Love your enemies, 
and pray for them that persecute you ; that ye may be the sons of 
your Father which is in heaven : for he maketh his sun to rise on 
the evil and the good, and sendeth rain on the just and the unjust. 
For if ye love them that love you, what reward have ye ? do not 
even the publicans the same ? And if ye salute your brethren 
only, what do ye more than others ? do not even the Gentiles the 
same ? Ye therefore shall be perfect, as your heavenly Father is 
perfect. 

The hasty inference was sure to be drawn that 
Jesus, in proclaiming the kingdom of God, was 
about to institute a general overturning. He 
would be expected by some to begin at the very 
beginning of things, first sweeping the ground 
clear of all laws and institutions already in exist- 
ence, and making his followers free from any obli- 
gations except those which he laid upon them. 
He is careful to inform them that such is not the 
fact. 

And yet such an inference was not so prepos- 



MORALITY OF ENTHUSIASM RELATED TO LAW 5 I 

terous as one might think. Jesus had come, as 
we see from the first part of this chapter, pro- 
claiming a kind of goodness that is higher than 
obedience to law. When we for our part start out 
to make men orderly and well-behaved, we take 
pains to make them very scrupulous, very consci- 
entious ; we give them a moral law to obey. But 
Jesus seems, in the beginning of his sermon, to 
pass over the consideration of conformity to moral 
rules. He takes pains rather to make men very 
aspiring. He sets before them their blessedness 
as the goal of their wishes. He makes that bless- 
edness to consist in such things as poverty of 
spirit, eagerness to be righteous, singleness of 
heart, faithfulness to inward light. He teaches a 
kind of goodness which one may have by embrac- 
ing it, wishing for it, persuading himself that he 
possesses it. This is quite distinct from the kind 
of goodness which consists in obeying moral laws. 
It is a kind of ardor or enthusiasm for high things 
rather than a mechanical committing to memory 
of rules. It is a kind of law-making power in the 
heart rather than slavish conformity to a set of 
positive precepts. Jesus undertakes to get hold 
of men from another side than that from which 
legislators and teachers of morals do. They try 
to make men scrupulous, he seeks to make them 
enthusiastic ; they govern by caution, he by inspi- 
ration ; they aim at correctness, he at life and 
movement. Jesus knows that to get the man's 
spirit alive and seeking after harmony with God's 
will, as well as after the peace and welfare of his 
fellow-men, is to set a power at work in that man 



52 MAGNA CHARTA OF THE KINGDOM OF GOD 

which will make him good. He knows too, that a 
goodness which is only a keeping of laws, without 
any inspiration by which the spirit of those laws 
becomes a part of the man's nature, is no real 
goodness at all ; it is only restraint which runs 
wild as soon as the pressure of the law is with- 
drawn. 

Thus it is seen that Jesus is dealing not with 
laws but with the spirit that supersedes laws. If 
a man has all that is expressed in the Beatitudes, 
he needs no laws. He becomes a law unto him- 
self. Now, of course, the hasty inference from 
this would be : ''Then for us, the salt of the earth, 
Moses no longer has authority. We are on a 
higher level. The Ten Commandments and all 
the teachings of the ancients are henceforth obso- 
lete. Jesus our Master has come to set up a new 
kingdom, and he begins by destroying the law and 
the prophets. He is a new Moses, entirely super- 
seding the old." So Jesus finds it necessary, as 
soon as he has defined the blessedness which his 
followers are to seek, to assure them that this 
higher blessedness is no repudiation of the humble 
goodness of law. 

His caution was necessary. It is necessary to- 
day. For it is only guarding against the incon- 
sistency which we see constantly reappearing in 
men's lives, the inconsistency of those who are 
religious without being moral. The figure of the 
man who prays and exhorts and gets into an 
ecstasy of benevolent enthusiasm, and then, on 
the other hand, has to be watched in his dealing 
to guard against his cheating, is a familiar one. 



MORALITY OF ENTHUSIASM RELATED TO LAW 53 

We have had him held up before us until we cer- 
tainly ought to recognize him. He forms the sta- 
ple of the unbeliever's taunt, and points many a 
turn of fine wit as well as coarse. 
We loathe him when he appears as an Rev. 2 : 15 
antinomian, whom John denounces 
under the name of Nicolaitan, as hated of God ; 
we laugh at him when he turns up in the story of 
the colored revivalist, who was afraid to say any- 
thing in his conventicle, where the Holy Spirit was 
so powerfully present, about the impropriety of 
chicken stealing, for fear it would throw a coldness 
on the meeting. The inconsistent religious man 
is simply the one who has the Beatitudes without 
having the law. He has the goodness that he 
may embrace and rejoice in mentally and spiritu- 
ally, while he has not held fast to the humbler 
possession of uprightness of life. 

Now take note that Jesus begins with the good- 
ness that the irreligious despise, the goodness of 
enthusiasm, of religion. He did not make a mis- 
take in doing this. But he carefully shows us that 
this, to be genuine, must include the lower or legal 
and moral form of goodness which the world in- 
sists upon. Religion and morality are not the 
same, but religion must include morality. Re- 
ligion may be had by embracing it, believing and 
rejoicing in it ; but no amount of believing and 
rejoicing will straighten up one's accounts when 
they are false. Yet believing, trusting God, seek- 
ing him with all the heart, furnishes just the inspi- 
ration needed to make the man keep his accounts 
straight as well as do far more. Now the Saviour 



54 MAGNA CHARTA OF THE KIxNGDOM OF GOD 

says : *^ Let him not presume to get his blessed- 
ness in the higher realm of volition and action 
when this part of his life is culpably wanting. 
The kingdom of heaven destroys not the law and 
the prophets." 

I. This then is the first principle 
Ver. 17-20 enunciated in this part of the Ser- 
mon on the Mount : The kingdom 
of heaven preserves the law. That law is eternal ; 
it is the mind of God. He who discovered it dis- 
covered a principle of conduct which shall never 
cease to be true. Till heaven and earth pass, one 
jot or one tittle shall in no wise pass from the law 
till all be fulfilled. 

And yet the man who loves God and has his 
kingdom set up in his heart does not think much 
about this law. He does not have to be restrained 
by main strength, as it were, by the law which 
says, '' Thou shalt not kill ; thou shalt not steal ; 
thou shalt not bear false witness." These re- 
straints are hardly ever present to his mind : he is 
conscious of no compulsion from them. He sim- 
ply has no disposition to transgress these com- 
mands ; they become no more necessary to him 
than would a law saying, '^ Thou shalt not walk 
into the fire." He is living in a 
I Tim. I : 9 higher sphere of things. Such pro- 
hibitions are for those who are vi- 
cious and unruly in disposition, not for those who 
have a new heart which is conformed to the will 
of God. 

That law, however, is by no means destroyed in 
becoming thus invisible. It ceases to compel the 



MORALITY OF ENTHUSIASM RELATED TO LAW 55 

conduct of the man because it is fulfilled. He 
obeyed it before he had time to hear its command. 
I sometimes liken that moral law of prohibitions 
to the bony skeleton in our bodies. We have 
them there, but we do not see them. They give 
us strength ; they are the means by which our 
frame performs its movements. These skeletons 
are not a pleasant thing to contemplate when 
brought out to view. They are covered by the 
beauty and gracefulness of flesh and muscle, so 
that they are hidden from sight, but they are 
operative all the same. So with that strong, bony 
framework of law and morality inside of our re- 
ligion. Those warm desires, fervent aspirations 
after union with God, sweet hopes and rejoicings 
of faith — these are far more pleasant to engage 
the consciousness of the Christian than the mere 
restraints of law. These are to be his life in 
which he takes delight and in which he finds his 
blessedness. But these experiences are like the 
beauty of flesh and blood which covers the bony 
frame. Inside of them is strong, conscientious 
heed of God's prohibitions. The love of God in 
which we delight has as its framework the fear of 
God. This law, saying, ^' Thou shalt not," is what 
gives strength and firmness to our character. It 
is not repealed but fulfilled in the sweeter expe- 
rience of the religious life, just as the bony frame- 
work is fulfilled in the muscles and flesh which 
hide it from view. We do not think of the law, 
*^Thou shalt not steal," as actuating our conduct 
so as to make it any different from what it would 
otherwise be, but its strength is all wrought up 



56 MAGNA CHARTA OF THE KINGDOM OF GOD 

into that sweeter religious experience which is our 
blessedness. 

But Jesus seems to recognize a law-making 
power in the heart of the one who is of the king- 
dom of heaven. There are in that heart the en- 
lightenment and disposition which make need- 
ful such moral laws as these. He is a law unto 
himself. Thus his morality has all the freshness 
and zest of a perpetual discovery of new principles. 
With his regenerate faithfulness to the inner light 
of the divine Spirit, he is his own Moses, to whom 
God's will as clearly reveals itself as it did to the 
lawgiver on the height of Sinai. 

Now I am aware that this doctrine of inner illu- 
mination may be perverted. I know that only the 
very highest and truest of those who see God's 
will can be trusted to walk solely by their intui- 
tions. The man who is acting from personal in- 
ward revelations is generally regarded as an erratic 
man. Quakers, Anabaptists, Quietists, whatever 
the name, those who profess a daily guidance from 
inward illumination, are distrusted as fanatics. We 
say, '' If their inward illumination is their only 
guide, what is to prevent them from taking a no- 
tion some day to go contrary to all sober rules of 
conduct and all right and morality.^ What is to 
prevent them at least from getting astride of a 
very tall hobby and riding it to destruction ? " 

The Saviour answers this by implying that the 
true Spirit of God may be trusted to guide men 
more safely than all that. The inward light is in 
entire harmony with the light which revealed to 
Moses his law. It is the same Spirit, and he will 



MORALITY OF ENTHUSIASM RELATED TO LAW 5/ 

lead to the same truth. Jesus recognizes the fact 
that the subjects of his kingdom will teach as they 
are inspired to teach by the indwelling Spirit of God. 
Those old principles will become so much alive to 
them that they shall proclaim them from their own 
blessed insight of their truth. ''But 
now," he says, '' if any one in the ex- y^j.^ iq 
ercise of the gift of the Spirit teaches 
things contrary to the least of these command- 
ments, he may be of the kingdom, but he shall be 
dwarfed to insignificant usefulness and influence 
in that kingdom." It is conceivable that a man 
with a really divine impulse may so misunderstand 
the guidance of God that he shall pronounce some 
of the old enactments obsolete; but sooner or 
later he will find himself becoming one of the 
least in the kingdom of heaven. Those who be- 
come great in usefulness — and Jesus recognizes 
no other greatness — will always have promptings 
of spirit which are in harmony with the old law. 
The Spirit will not contradict himself. The old 
truth and the new will never conflict. He who is 
so progressive as to deny the old truth will have 
his reward in a speedy relapse into insignificance. 
While the voice is novel it may attract a few fol- 
lowers ; but its freshness soon wears off, and then 
the actual outcome is seen to be of small account. 
The teacher may have been enthusiastic and zeal- 
ous for his new teaching; but he is doomed to the 
worst of disappointments for the zealous teacher, 
uselessness. It is love's labor lost. Except in so 
far as the new teaching preserved the spirit of the 
old, it has failed to achieve permanent good. 



58 MAGNA CHARTA OF THE KINGDOM OF GOD 

It will be seen that such a restriction of the 
fresh-surging impulse of the kingdom to harmony 
with the past is not making disciples the slaves of 
a book, afraid to be guided by the spirit within 
them, conservative and only conservative, lifeless 
like the scribes. On the contrary, the spirit in us, 
through Christ, is greater than the spirit of con- 
formity. Our religion is more than a commentary 
religion — it is fresh every day. It gives us daily 
inward light. But inward light includes faithful- 
ness to the wisdom of the past. Even if there is 
something more of us than carefulness to preserve 
the old ways, that something will be useful and 
permanent in its effects only as the wisdom of the 
past is imbedded in it and fulfilling its own spirit 
by it. Let him who follows the 
I Cor. 9 : 27 Spirit of God in his teaching be- 
ware lest, having preached to others, 
he himself should become a castaway, that is, 
should be laid on the shelf, as we say — should with 
all his fervor of enthusiasm cease to have signifi- 
cance in the development of true religion. 

The kingdom, then, preserves the law : the New 
Testament fulfills the Old. 

2. Let us now see how much more 

Ver. 20-48 f^^Hy ^^^ according to its spirit the 

law is kept in the kingdom of 

heaven. Not only does the kingdom preserve the 

law, but it is the only way of acquiring the power 

to keep the law in its spirit. 

We shall see as we look at the Saviour's de- 
tailed examples, how much different a thing it is 



MORALITY OF ENTHUSIASM RELATED TO LAW S9 

to keep the law in the spirit from what it is to 
keep it in the letter. It is the spirit of the law 
which is to constitute the higher righteousness, 
the righteousness which is to exceed that of the 
scribes and Pharisees. '* Except 
your righteousness," says Jesus, y^r. 20 
** exceed the righteousness of the 
scribes and Pharisees, ye shall in no case enter 
into the kingdom of heaven." '* You are to keep 
the law according to its spirit : these only aim to 
preserve its letter, and in so doing they often deny 
its spirit." 

The first example is the law 
against murder. ''Thou shalt not y^r. 21-26 
kill," is the plain precept. But this 
law may be kept in the mere letter, though a per- 
son have a heart ever so full of murderous im- 
pulses, provided only he stop short of the actual 
shedding of blood. Now the Saviour says the 
spirit of the law is against all which leads to mur- 
der. Anger against our brother is the root of mur- 
der. If we cherish that, we are in danger of the 
criminal court ; we have only to give it clear sway 
and we shall end there. If we have the true spirit 
which originated that law we shall begin with our 
feelings toward our brother, rather than simply 
with our overt acts. " Whosoever 
hateth his brother is a murderer," i John 3 : 15 
says John. We are to guard then, 
against all alienation from our brother. When we 
have come to that point where we call him " fool " 
we are on our way to the Gehenna of fire just as 
truly as if we have struck him a fatal blow. We 



6o MAGNA CHARTA OF THE KINGDOM OF GOD 

have not got quite so far along on the path, but 
the murderous impulse will surely take us there 
unless something entirely opposite to it restrain 
our hand. 

The Saviour then goes on to in- 
Ver. 23 24 culcate still another duty by way of 
guarding against the growth of an- 
ger. It is the same old duty of taking care not 
to let our worship or our religion be separated 
from the moral law in the case. We might think 
of a man cherishing anger against his fellow-man, 
and then going and praying to God as if he had 
no concern with it. Indeed, men often do so. 
You shall see men who are looked up to in the 
church carrymg a grudge against others for years, 
so that they will not speak to them in the street. 
They make their prayers before God, and persuade 
themselves that they are enjoying religion, when 
there is all the while that alienation in the heart 
which keeps them from having any intercourse 
with their brother. This is precisely that having 
religion without morality against which Jesus so 
carefully guards in this part of his sermon. 

Jesus says in effect, ** You have no business to 
pray so long as you are unreconciled with your 
brother. You have no business with religion and 
the enjoyments of the kingdom of heaven as long 
as there is evil in your relations to your fellow- 
men." He speaks of our religion as a bringing of 
our gift to the altar. But prayer is our offering, 
and the rule applies to our praying as well as to 
our bringing of meat- offerings, as the Jews did in 
the time of Christ. When you get down to pray. 



MORALITY OF ENTHUSIASM RELATED TO LAW 6 1 

then, and remember that your brother has some- 
thing against you, go your way ; first be recon- 
ciled to your brother, and then come and seek 
communion with God. The communion with God 
that cherishes hatred is a spurious communion. 

All this is in accordance with the spirit of the 
law against murder. Not only are we not to kill, 
but we are not to cherish hatred ; nay, we are to 
do all we can to keep our brother from hating us. 
We may not always be able to effect a reconcilia- 
tion when a difference has arisen between us ; but 
we can do our part. We can divest ourselves of 
all but the kindest spirit toward him. We may so 
bring it about that our highest wish is to be rec- 
onciled and to do him good. '* If it be possible, 
as much as in yoii lieth, be at peace 
with all men," says the apostle. Rom. 12 : 18 
Until our heart is at peace with 
every man, we have no right to pretend to enjoy 
religion. It will only make hypocrites of us. 
Those who have been wise in winning souls can 
tell you many a story of anxious hearts mourning 
for peace with God, and yet unable to find it until 
they have gone and sought forgiveness, or granted 
it, in some feud of long standing. How often, in 
conversion, the hardest thing to do has been to 
forgive somebody to whom we had resolved never 
to yield ! God does not forgive those who have 
hatred in their hearts. Any pretense of religion 
with that unsubdued is hypocrisy. 

As if to picture in strongest colors the unloveli- 
ness of that state of society where hatred, or even 
bare justice, determines men's reciprocal action, 



62 MAGNA CHARTA OF THE KINGDOM OF GOD 

Jesus advises the transgressor or the delinquent 
to seize with all eagerness that little shred of 
grace which may be secured between the detection 
of the fault and the turning over of the case to the 
dispensers of justice. Agree with thine adversary 
quickly while there is room for the play of friend- 
ship and mutual agreement. Avoid as far as pos- 
sible having your welfare depend on strict justice 
and nothing else. Keep open all the chance that 
you can for mercy and accommodation. Steer 
clear of the law. Live in the region of grace and 
friendship. Once let the law have its course, and 
there is no stopping short of its full penalty. 

Jesus then goes on to make a 
Ver. 27-32 similar application of the law against 

adultery. It is not simply the act 
of which the latter takes cognizance that is to be 
avoided ; it is the impurity of heart which leads to 
it. He counsels the utmost solicitude in remov- 
ing every cause of offense or stumbling in this re- 
gard, even though it is like cutting off the hand, 
or putting out the eye. This is pre-eminently a 
law whose transgression is to be guarded against 
by the banishing of evil thoughts. Impurity of 
heart feasts itself and grows fat on evil thoughts : 
the imagination, fired by the sight of the eyes, 
takes flame and sets the whole body and mind 

ablaze with sinful passion. Job 
Job 31 : 12 says: ** It is a fire; unto Abaddon 

it devoureth." Men often give 
place to these lascivious emotions until they are 
past resisting them, and their whole being becomes 
brutalized and deo^raded. Cicero no doubt saw 



MORALITY OF ENTHUSIASM RELATED TO LAW 63 

such men in his day to call forth his advice : '' Sis 
a venereis amoribtts aversus ; qtnbits si tu desid- 
erisj non allied quldquam possls co git are quam lllud 
quod dlllgls'' — ^'Hold off from sensuality, for if 
you have given yourself up to it, you will find 
yourself unable to think of anything else." How 
many there are who are disgustingly adulterous in 
spirit, and yet who are outwardly ranked high in 
respectable society. The utmost fortitude in ban- 
ishing and shunning the first suggestions of evil is 
the only safeguard against adultery of the heart. 
Most wisely did the Saviour recognize and rebuke 
that too common transgression of the seventh 
commandment which consists in lecherous emo- 
tions and an impure imagination. 

In immediate connection with this 
Jesus speaks of the Mosaic permis- Yer. 31 32 
sion of and rule for divorce. He 
elsewhere calls this permission a Matt. 19 : 8 
legislation adapted to men's hard- 
ness of heart. But all mere legislation intended 
to be enforced by external power must be in a 
measure adapted to men's hardness of heart. In 
civil affairs the law must give a permission in the 
matter which evil men may abuse if they choose. 
If the law does not do this, worse evils will be in- 
troduced. But the kingdom of heaven teaches a 
faithfulness to the marriage vow which desires no 
such permission. It teaches a consideration for 
the woman which will not allow the man to put 
her away, however incompatible her disposition, 
and thus subject her to the temptation to seek 
support by alliance with some one else. The 



64 MAGNA CHARTA OF THE KINGDOM OF GOD 

kingdom of heaven considers the commandment 
broken by making others commit adultery, as well 
as by doing so ourselves. Thus the spirit of the 
law not only guards against transgression, but re- 
moves from others the temptation to transgress. 

Then in the matter of oaths, Jesus 
Ver. 33-37 contrasts the higher teaching of the 
kingdom with the teaching of those 
of old time. Of old they used to say: ''Keep 
your oaths. Perform them as unto 
Exod. 20 : 7 the Lord." The definite precept of 
the Decalogue which comes nearest 
to this is, '' Thou shalt not take the name of the 
Lord thy God in vain." That is, thou shalt not 
invoke his name as a witness of thy faithfulness, 
and then repudiate that oath. Now on this plane 
of things this teaching is as important now as it 
ever was. If we have made an oath or a vow w^e 
are to keep it. A good part of ancient religion 
consisted in its vows, that is, things which men 
solemnly promised to do unto the Lord. The vow 
was a freewill affair ; no one was obliged to take 
it. But when it was once taken, it 
Lev. 19 : 12 was dishonoring the name of the 
Lord to fail in the performance of 
Num. 30 : 2 it. The calling of God to witness 
in the matter was a solemn proce- 
dure, and it was an awful thing to break the oath 
of God, thus making him a party to a lie. 

This applied to all oaths. When once men had 
named the name of God they felt themselves 
bound ; and often they allowed themselves free- 
dom to break their word when they were not oath- 



MORALITY OF ENTHUSIASM RELATED TO LAW 65 

bound. So it came to pass that men could believe 
them only under oath. Now, how does the higher 
teaching apply to this ? The Saviour says : Let 
your communication be so straightforward that 
you do not need to take an oath. Let your word 
be as good as your bond. So live that men shall 
believe your ungarnished, unemphasized assertion. 
That is the ideal state of things. He who does 
the most calling of God to witness is the one 
whose veracity needs the most bolstering. Swear 
not at all. Let your communication be ''Yea, 
yea, Nay, nay." All this habit of using assevera- 
tions has come of a laxness in veracity which was 
evil. 

I do not suppose that in thus teaching Jesus 
meant to set forth the principle that henceforth 
oaths shall no longer be used in civil affairs. In 
fact, the oath is still necessary in legal proceedings. 
Those proceedings have to do with many who can 
be bound only by an oath. Jesus does not abolish 
the law; he seeks rather to get men above the 
necessity of it. Meanwhile the law must stand 
for those who are not above its level. In truth, 
civil courts are not of the kingdom of heaven ; 
they are of this world. They must of necessity 
be at the level of men's "hardness of heart." But 
in the kingdom of heaven, just in so far as it is 
realized in practical life, the oath is not necessary. 
People believe you just as implicitly without. 
And the way for those who are of the kingdom of 
heaven to make progress toward abolishing the 
oath in the world is not to refuse to take the oath 
when required, but so to live that people shall de- 

E 



66 MAGNA CHARTA OF THE KINGDOM OF GOD 

cline to administer it to them. There have been 
a few eminent citizens of our own country who 
have been spontaneously treated in this way in the 
courts of law. Their unsupported word was all- 
sufficient. So the kingdom when it comes will 
naturally do away with oaths and vows. But it 
does away the law by fulfilling it. The truthful- 
ness which the oath sought to insure is brought 
about in a higher way. The very spirit of truth- 
fulness has obviated the necessity of an enforced 
truthfulness. People tell the truth naturally, and 
the oath is out of place. 

A further illustration of the influ- 
Ver. 38-42 ^nce of the kingdom of heaven upon 

law is seen in the transformation of 
that old rule of criminal procedure that the one 
who has done a wrong shall suffer the kind of 

wrong which he has done: '*Eye 
Lev. 24 : 17-23 for eye, tooth for tooth, hand for 

hand, burning for burning." It 
was the strict infliction of like for like as a pen- 
alty for crime. Now this is as just a rule as 
can be devised, if we are going to set out to 
repay any one for wrong-doing at all. The mere 
natural sense of justice would say such retribution 
is just what the wrong-doer deserves. Our Lord 
does not repudiate this law, any more than he does 
any of the rest. But he addresses himself solely 
to the one who has suffered the wrong; and he 
says, ''Do not insist on satisfaction. Mere justice 
would allow you an equal retaliation ; but the 
kingdom of heaven in you will lead you to submit 
to evil rather than resist." In fact the verv book 



MORALITY OF ENTHUSIASM RELATED TO LAW 6/ 

that publishes our rule of retributory 
procedure, when addressing the ag- Lev. 19 : 18 
grieved party commands forbearance 
and love. The higher love removes all resent- 
ment from the heart. The Christlike man feels 
only compassion for his brother — he is willing to 
undergo any personal despite rather than injure 
him. The injunction, ^* Whosoever smiteth thee 
on thy right cheek, turn to him the other also," 
has always seemed a hard command to keep. It 
requires peculiar saintliness to be capable of such 
forbearance. But we can easily see that the 
tendency of the kingdom of heaven — that is, of 
the love of God in the heart — is toward just such 
compassion and dignity of yielding. Jesus is not 
teaching us to be pusillanimous ; he is only teach- 
ing us a higher love, which never loses sight of our 
neighbor's welfare. Mere personal resentment 
shall yield to this love. We shall at least count it 
an infirmity if we let our anger betray us into 
anything that shall injure even the man who 
treats us with violence. High and wonderful for- 
bearance this, for human nature to attain ; but we 
cannot say it is an unnatural thing to set before 
us as our goal. 

Finally, the Saviour sums up with 
the law of love. The ancient law Yq^,^ 43-48 
was, '*Thou shalt love thy neighbour 
as thyself." Contenting themselves Lev. 19 : 18 
with the mere letter, men restricted 
that saying exclusively to those who could be 
called neighbors in the narrower sense. So they 
mentally added to the law the converse, ''and hate 



68 MAGNA CHARTA OF THE KINGDOM OF GOD 

thine enemy." But Jesus gives the law a much 
wider application than this. ''Love your enemies 
— this is the duty of the kingdom. If you love 
only your neighbors you do no better than the 
publicans and the heathen. Let your pattern in 
this be God himself, who in his providence sends 
the rain on the just and on the unjust, and causes 
his sun to rise on the evil and on the good. Aim 
indeed to be perfect in love as he is. Your Father 
which is in heaven is the only worthy goal of your 
striving." 

This law of love is the principle which under- 
lies all Jesus' treatment of the old law. It is the 
spirit which makes our obedience as members of 
the kingdom of heaven different from that of 
those who only keep the letter of the law. It 
modifies our obedience to the law against murder, 
against adultery, against false swearing. It works 
the abolition of retaliation by raising us above ex- 
acting it. Mere law seeks equal justice between 
men ; the kingdom of God seeks salvation, the 
triumph of love. The merely just man will not 
kill ; he who loves will use all means to be recon- 
ciled. The upright man will avoid adultery; he 
who loves will so act that no temptation to impu- 
rity shall be put in any one's w^ay. Justice will be 
faithful to oaths, so that no one can tax the juror 
with falsity; love will so guard against falsifying 
the word that no oath shall be called for. Faith- 
fulness to men's rights will never exact more than 
the ''pound of flesh" when one has done a wrong, 
but it will have the satisfaction which the law 
allows. But love will forego all such satisfaction. 



MORALITY OF ENTHUSIASM RELATED TO LAW 69 

It does not want it. It wants to see the violent 
and unjust man reclaimed. It ever seeks, in true 
compassion for his lost and wronged-hearted con- 
dition, to commend to him a higher forbearance, 
that he may be won to a nobler life. 

Thus love, which is the nature of God, under- 
lies the obedience of the kingdom. Love trans- 
figures the law and fulfills it. Love makes the 
man do the same things, and far more, from higher 
motives ; so that the law is no longer law for him, 
but the nature of God to which his soul aspires. 
Perfection of love is the least that will satisfy the 
aspiring member of God's kingdom. He recog- 
nizes as his Father — the supreme one to whom his 
whole being conforms itself — none other than the 
infinite God, who is the infinite love. 

Thus upon the old law, cited by means of a few 
vital examples, Jesus puts a new stamp which 
makes an altogether new thing of it. It is no 
longer a mere law ; for it no longer compels an 
unwilling subject seeking by all dialectic ingenuity 
to evade its requirements. It finds the aspiring 
heart so ready to obey that its voice of command 
needs no longer to make itself heard. The exter- 
nal edict is superseded by the internal disposition. 
The letter is swallowed up by the spirit. The 
legal enactment is annihilated by a trend of life 
far above it. Thus, though no longer dreaded, it 
is still more efficiently kept. Truer and more obe- 
dient to it than the most pharisaical of Jewish for- 
malists is the one who has no longer any thought 
of its precepts, but lives in the aspiring desire to 
love all men as himself. This is not destroying 



70 MAGNA CHARTA OF THE KINGDOM OF GOD 

the law, nor again is it re-enacting the law; it is 
fulfilling it. The stamp of perpetuity — nay, of 
resurrection to newness of life — put on the old law 
is the sublime word of Jesus, ''Ye therefore shall 
be perfect, as your heavenly Father is perfect." 



IV 



RIGHTEOUSNESS WHOSE REWARD 
IS OF THE EARTH 



Matt 6 : 1-18 



IV 

Take heed that ye do not your righteousness before men, to be 
seen of them : else ye have no reward with your Father which is 
in heaven. 

AVhen therefore thou doest alms, sound not a trumpet before thee, 
as the hypocrites do in the synagogues and in the streets, that they 
may have glory of men. ^^erily I say unto you. They have received 
their reward. But when thou doest alms, let not thy left hand 
know what thy right hand doeth : that thine alms may be in se- 
cret : and thy Father which seeth in secret shall recompense thee. 

And when ye pray, ye shall not be as the hypocrites : for they 
love to stand and pray in the synagogues and in the corners of 
the streets, that they may be seen of men. Verily I say unto 
you. They have received their rew^ard. But thou, when thou 
prayest, enter into thine inner chamber, and having shut thy 
door, pray to thy Father which is in secret, and thy Father 
which seeth in secret shall recompense thee. And in praying 
use not vain repetitions, as the Gentiles do : for they think that 
they shall be heard for their much speaking. Be not therefore 
like unto them : for your Father knoweth what things ye have 
need of before ye ask him. After this manner therefore pray ye : 
Our Father which art in heaven. Hallowed be thy name. Thy 
kingdom come. Thy will be done, as in heaven, so on earth. 
Give us this day our daily bread. And forgive us our debts, as 
we also have forgiven our debtors. And bring us not into temp- 
tation, but deliver us from the evil one. For if ye forgive men 
their trespasses, your heavenly Father will also forgive you. 
But if ye forgive not men their trespasses, neither will your 
Father forgive your trespasses. 

Moreover when ye fast, be not, as the hypocrites, of a sad 
countenance : for they disfigure their faces, that they may be seen 
of men to fast. Verily I say unto you. They have received their 
reward. But thou, w^hen thou fastest, anoint thy head and wash 
thy face ; that thou be not seen of men to fast, but of thy 
Father which is in secret ; and thy Father, which seeth in secret, 
shall recompense thee. 

The general truth which sums up this passage 
is found in the first verse. This is a statement of 

73 



74 MAGNA CHARTA OF THE KINGDOM OF GOD 

the subject of the whole, and the rest is of the 
nature of illustration and particular application. 
In that verse we are admonished to be careful and 
not to do our righteousness before men, to be 
seen of them. Then, going on from that verse, 
three kinds of righteousness are specified, alms, 
prayer, and fasting. In doing alms we are to 
guard against temptation by *' letting not our left 
hand know what our right hand doeth." In 
prayer, we are to enter into our inner chamber 
and shut the door, so that our request may be 
made with a single heart to the Father who sees 
in secret. In fasting, we are to perform our 
usual toilet, and let ourselves look as well-kept as 
ever, that we may not appear unto men to fast. 
These items of righteousness, as religious observ- 
ances, are matters between ourselves and God. 
They cannot sincerely be done for the sake of 
human rewards. If we take pains to have men 
see them and approve, we have no reward of our 
Father who is in heaven. In other words, such 
selfish conduct gains no acknowledgment from 
infinite love. 

Now in the first verse we find a statement of 
truth which foreshadows and opens the way for 
all that follows. To begin with, observe the 
words, ^'Take heed." These words as used by 
our Lord generally introduce a prohibition of 
some insidious and hurtful propensity or habit of 
mind. When the Saviour says, '* Take heed," he 
goes on to refer to something that we are to be 
very careful against. It is not simply some ex- 
actly recognizable act that we can leave off at a 



I 



RIGHTEOUSNESS WHOSE REWARD IS OF EARTH 75 

word and done with it, but something which we 
must keep as far from as possible, or we shall be 
doing it before we know it. We are to guard 
against it by going as far as we can the other 
way. We are to conform ourselves to such per- 
sonal habits that the entrance of the temptation 
shall be impossible. Thus the Saviour bids the 
disciples ^^take heed," or ''beware" 
of the leaven of the Pharisees Luke 12 : i 
which is hypocrisy. The thing 
thus warned against is an insidious habit of mind, 
the habit of hollowness or insincerity. It is one 
of those sins which grow until they have imper- 
ceptibly gained entire possession of the man. It 
is one of those things which the person does not 
see clearly enough to avoid in its first approach, 
and can only guard against, as it were, blindly, by 
leaning very strongly to the opposite side. And 
you remember the sin of covetousness, which is a 
sin from which our Lord tells us to 
take heed and guard ourselves, was Luke 12 : 15 
of a nature to take such a hold on 
the rich young man that he could Luke 18 : 22 
be guaranteed a cure only on condi- 
tion of selling all his goods and giving to the poor. 
Now this doing of our righteousness to be seen 
of men is a habit that is to be guarded against in 
the same way. It is not so much a crime as a 
blighting condition of things that is insidious in 
its approach, like hypocrisy. In fact it is largely 
of the same nature. Our Saviour cannot simply 
say, '* Do not do so," for a person might easily 
think he was not doing it, when in reality his 



76 MAGNA CHARTA OF THE KINGDOM OF GOD 

whole nature might be permeated with its virus. 
The Lord must rather say, ** Beware of doing it : 
be wary, or on your guard against doing it," — for 
this word ^'take heed" and '^ beware " are the 
same word. And by way of guarding against a 
temptation so insidious in its nature, he suggests 
what we might call disciplinary measures. He 
advises us to let our righteousness take pains to 
be sedulously removed from the possibility of 
ostentation. He enjoins an almost fussy and un- 
natural effort of concealment. Let the alms be 
rigidly hidden from view. Let the prayer be in 
the secret chamber. Let the fasting take pains 
to cover up its own effects on the person. Thus 
we shall lean as far as possible away from the 
temptation to be ostentatious of our religious 
merits. We shall beware of doing our righteous- 
ness before men to be seen of them, by hiding it 
of set purpose from men. For the temptation to 
ostentatious goodness is a temptation which gains 
possession of a man and, before he knows it, 
makes him incapable of living in eternal truth, 
and for an eternal rew^ard. 

Perhaps we do not appreciate this temptation as 
we might do if we lived in such times as those of 
Christ, and among Oriental worshipers. And 
perhaps we flatter ourselves that here is a teach- 
ing of the Lord w^hich applies only to a peculiar 
age of the world, or to a peculiar kind of people. 
We do not feel guilty of displaying our religious 
observances. We have the impulse to hide them 
rather. We are often afraid to let men know that 
we are pious. We seem more in need of having 



RIGHTEOUSNESS WHOSE REWARD IS OF EARTH "JJ 

Daniel's example set before us, as he did his 
praying in Babylon, when praying was prohibited 
by law. He opened his windows and exhibited 
his devotions three times a day. We seem more 
in need of being exhorted to '' dare to be a Dan- 
iel,'' than of being advised to do our praying and 
our other religious duties in secret. The truth of 
the preceding chapter of this sermon, that the 
member of God's kingdom is to let his light shine 
before men, so that they shall see his good works, 
seems to be the truth more especially needed for 
our Western and Protestant ideas of religion. 
The hiding of our piety will take care of itself. 
We do not need to be exhorted to this. There is 
not much danger of the average modern Christian 
standing on the street corner and praying in order 
that men may see him. Our ideas and customs 
are all so far the other way that when, for instance, 
the Salvation Army has the resoluteness to hold 
street prayer meetings, we are inclined to regard 
the action as unnatural and out of place in modern 
civilization. 

But there is something more constant and uni- 
versal than mere ostentation in this sin of which 
the Saviour tell us to beware. That is the state 
of the heart which led the Jew to attribute efficacy 
and value to his outward piety. It is indicated in 
the last clause of this first verse, "• Otherwise ye 
have no reward of your Father which is in 
heaven." It is also indicated in that sad refrain 
which the Saviour brings in after every example 
of hypocritical ostentation, ''Verily I say unto 
you, They have received their reward." That of 



J^ MAGNA CHARTA OF THE KINGDOM OF GOD 

which we are to beware, then, is the acting, in 
spiritual things, for an immediate and an earthly 
reward; the letting our righteousness be meas- 
ured simply by what men think, and letting its suf- 
ficient compensation be that approval which men, 
looking merely on the outside, can give. When 
we work solely for human approval we lose the 
faculty for appreciating the approval of the 
heavenly Father. When an immediate and finite 
reward is all we seek, we lose the power to strive 
for the infinite reward. So it is true that he 
whose righteousness is simply done according to 
the measure of men's standards, and only for 
their approval, is one who has no reward of the 
Father which is in heaven. The reward which 
comes from the infinite Love is a thing that would 
be no reward to him. He is getting his reward 
every day as he displays his goodness before men. 
It is a scanty enough reward, it is true, but he 
looks for nothing better, and this he can have im- 
mediately. Working for such a reward, he will 
naturally be tempted, when the customs of society 
admit of it, to be a sanctimonious displayer of his 
piety on the streets. But if piety is not so much 
the fashion in the world with which he mingles, 
he will nevertheless have the same leaven of 
regard for the praise of men working in him ; and 
it will make his reUgion and his righteousness of 
the superficial kind, even if it does not stand 
literally on the street corners to display itself. 

But those who display their religion in order to 
be seen and approved of men do so only because 
religion is, as it were, fashionable. In the time of 



RIGHTEOUSNESS WHOSE REWARD IS OF EARTH 79 

the Pharisees it was an advantage of a most sub- 
stantial kind to have the reputation of being a 
holy man. Men were greatly impressed when 
they saw a dignified religious man so careful and 
particular about his hours of devotion that when 
the minute arrived he would drop everything and 
stand and pray with great unction in the streets. 
It showed extraordinary scrupulosity about the 
forms of religion. And seeing it impressed peo- 
ple, the thrifty religious man could easily arrange 
it so that he should happen to be in a particularly 
public and conspicuous place when the hour for 
praying came around. Or he might manage it 
without apparent design so that his almsgiving 
should be made very conspicuous ; and his fasting 
could be allowed to show its effects on his person 
with great distinctness. But all this was because 
to be thus religious was good form. The same 
regard for the praise of men would lead a man to 
be irreligious when irreligion was fashionable. If 
freethinking were fashionable, such a person would 
be a freethinker. The same spirit and habit causes 
a man to be religious in religious times, and irre- 
ligious in irreligious times. 

The root of the sin is the following of the meas- 
ure of men's opinions — the taking of one's shape 
from his surroundings. It is the finding of his 
reward in the approval of the crowd. It is the 
looking around for the warrant of his conduct, 
rather than within or above. Sad indeed is the 
judgment which the Saviour pronounces upon 
such action: '< Verily I say unto you. They have 
received their reward." All that is to come of 



8o MAGNA CHARTA OF THE KINGDOM OF GOD 

such religion comes immediately, and then there is 
nothing left. The only inspiration of such right- 
eousness is the inspiration of popularity ; its only 
warrant and justification is what is commonly 
deemed success. If a person has all his reward in 
hand, there is nothing to look forward to. It is 
sad indeed to have our possibilities of good and of 
increase exhausted every day. It is but laying up 
for ourselves the sentence that was pronounced on 
the rich man in Hades : '^ Thou in thy lifetime re- 
ceivedst thy good things . . . now 
Luke i6 : 25 thou art tormented." 

This passage, then, is not simply a 
warning against ostentation in religion, but it is a 
warning against habits of action into which relig- 
ious, and irreligious as well, are in danger of falling. 
It is a warning against living only to please men. 
It is a warning against getting final satisfaction 
from human opinion. ** If I were still pleasing 
men," says Paul, *^ I should not be 
Gal. I : 10 a servant of Christ." The admoni- 
tion, ^' Take heed that ye do not your 
righteousness before men, to be seen of them," 
is moreover perfectly consistent with the converse 
exhortation, ^^ Even so let your light shine before 
men, that they may see your good 
Matt. 5 : 16 works, and glorify your Father which 
is in heaven." In the one case we 
rejoice to have men won to God by our true living; 
in the other case we are careful not to narrow our 
true living to what we presume men will approve. 
In the one case, we are to serve God with an in- 
trepid allegiance for men's sake, even though per- 



RIGHTEOUSNESS WHOSE REWARD IS OF EARTH 8 I 

secution and all hardship should labor to quench 
our light ; in the other case, we are to see to it 
that it is God whom we serve, and God's reward 
which we gain, whether men are likely to approve 
or not. 

In our earthly condition we need some exhilara- 
tion, some stimulus, some sense of approval, as our 
incentive to righteousness. I know that ideally 
holiness is just the acting out of a holy nature ; 
that any course of right action which is engaged in 
for a reward or inducement is short of the perfect 
righteousness. He who is truly holy, we say, is so 
because it is his nature to be so ; he does not need 
to be induced to be holy. Any dependence on in- 
ducements is looked upon as more or less selfish 
and sordid. Any holding out of inducements may 
be argued to be a corruption of the person who is 
thus led into a right choice. Yet as a matter of 
fact we are mostly too imperfect to be entirely 
capable of such unselfish goodness. The most of 
us are unable to work independently of any re- 
ward, or any sense of approval. Something must 
strengthen us in the sense that we are right ; 
something must hold our languid faith and alle- 
giance true to its aim. So the talk about entirely 
disinterested and unrewarded goodness is some- 
what impracticable. It is adapted to an ideal 
world, rather than to the world of average men 
and women as we find them. We should, indeed, 
hold up such goodness as our ideal to be striven 
after. The man cannot be counted perfect who 
works consciously for a reward. Nor can the man 
be counted perfectly holy who has to strive and 



82 MAGNA CHARTA OF THE KINGDOM OF GOD 

incite himself to goodness. Such goodness is vir- 
tue rather than holiness. Virtue is that goodness 
which a man achieves, even though some part of 
his nature wars against it and has to be put down ; 
holiness, on the other hand, is that goodness which 
is purely spontaneous and according to the renewed 
spiritual nature. A man cannot be counted holy 
until it is his nature to be good. And such holi- 
ness we should indeed hold up as our standard. It 
is the mark of our power to appreciate the glory of 
a higher world than ours that we are not content 
to accept anything short of this as perfect. Yet 
to recommend striving after that goal is quite a 
different thing from denying to men any incentive 
to goodness if they need it. If men need incentive, 
stimulus, exhilarating sense of approval, as indeed 
we all do, let them have the highest incentives. 
Do not put them, as it were, in a vacuum, and say, 
*' You shall labor without reward or not at all. 
Because to be entirely disinterested is the only 
final perfection, you are corrupting yourself by 
looking-for any inducement." Such a course would 
cut off almost everybody from right living. The 
fact is, this sluggish human nature needs some 
stimulus in spiritual things. There is a reward to 
be held before the faithful one, and it does not in- 
terfere with a very hopeful degree of goodness to 
be encouraged by the prospects and foregleaming 
joys of a heavenly world. 

So Jesus is not impracticable enough to divest 
righteousness of all hope of reward. He holds up 
the highest rewards as our goal. Those rewards 
are of such a nature that as the man rises in the 



RIGHTEOUSNESS WHOSE REWARD IS OF EARTH 83 

spiritual life and comes to appreciate them, they 
mean for him higher and more unselfish things ; 
and the following after them becomes less and less 
a subserviency to inducements. The person finds 
at last that his heavenly reward is the possession 
itself of that holiness which cannot perfect itself 
as mere rewarded conduct. The looking for a high 
reward is a stimulation for the time being which 
presently strengthens the person to get on without 
stimulation. It is the saving feature in Christi-^ 
anity, that it reaches down to people as they are ; 
it wins them as they can be won. It does not 
stand coldly at one side and propose an impracti- 
cable scheme of righteousness which sinful and 
sluggish human nature cannot embrace. It re- 
wards because we need the help of rewards. It 
not only points out a high goal, but it helps ordi- 
nary men to enter the race for it. 

Those who would improve on Christianity by 
teaching mankind something less selfish have been 
in fault just here. They have for their own part 
proposed a morality which was ideally pure, but 
too elevated and rarefied for the earthly man to 
possess. The flaws which they seemed to discover 
in Christianity were just those features which made 
Christianity saving. They themselves have sub- 
limed righteousness until it appeared faultless in 
theory, but this was at the expense of winning and 
saving power. The average man is left entirely 
unreached and unhelped. 

It is true, then, that we need some reward, some 
sense of approval, to keep us in courses of right 
action. Few of us would enter on lives of self- 



84 MAGNA CHARTA OF THE KINGDOM OF GOD 

denial and renunciation of pleasure if there were 
nothing at all to be gained by it. Hardship is not 
endured for its own sake. Discipline of the un- 
ruly animal powers is not resorted to just for the 
sake of making life's pleasures less. There is, in 
the mind of the person, something to be gained by 
a virtuous course, if it is nothing more than the 
satisfaction of having overcome himself. And this 
very sense of overcoming himself is valueless for 
him unless there is the feeling that to overcome 
himself makes him better, more worthy, more fit 
for his own approval, more in the way of some 
great reward. Whatever the far-off ideal of good- 
ness may be, the only attainable human goodness 
is stimulated and induced by some sense of ap- 
proval, some kind of reward. 

Now there is a kind of reward that a person may 
have immediately, and that is earthly reputation. 
I do not say that the simple, humble traits which 
the Saviour recommended as bringing blessedness 
will always give it. He who is .poor in spirit, w^ho 
mourns, who hungers after righteousness, who is 
pure and single of heart, may not always find an 
immediate human appreciation. He at least does 
not work for it, for those traits do not admit of 
such a thing. But he who is liberal in alms, as- 
siduous in public prayer, unsparing of self in his 
fasting and aflfliction of soul, may easily get a repu- 
tation for sanctity. Such virtues admit of ostenta- 
tion ; they may easily flourish on a false motive. 
Now to have the feeling that men regard you as 
righteous is a reward. It furnishes a stimulus to 
action. It exhilarates the person, and makes him 



RIGHTEOUSNESS WHOSE REWARD IS OF EARTH 85 

feel good. But the opinion of men often makes 
him feel good when he does not consider whether 
he deserves it. He does not look into his own 
heart; he believes himself good just because other 
people believe him good. They have awarded him 
the palm of goodness until he is cheated into 
making that a sufficient reward. What they have 
seen on the outside is all he counts into his good- 
ness. This very felicitating one's self on men's 
opinions thus makes the person incapable of an 
eternal reward. He does not look deep enough 
for it. 

But how flat and tame such a human reward is ! 
What inspiration is there in it.? What is there in it 
that can fire a man's soul ? When a certain type of 
virtue is in vogue, be that. When another fashion 
comes around, be up in that. Look around you 
and keep the run of things ; observe narrowly the 
drift of opinion so as to trim your sails to it, for in 
popularity is your only reward. Adopt as your 
motto, *' Nothing succeeds like success." Wor- 
ship success ; she will give you a kind of reward. 
Never ask whether God will approve, or whether 
your deepest inward self is satisfied ; simply regu- 
late all by the question. Will it succeed.'^ There 
is a reward in store for you, and you may have it 
at once, even while you are standing on the street- 
corner. It is a reward that may satisfy for a time. 
But it is a reward that in the time of trial will 
utterly fail. Can you wonder then at the infinite 
sadness of the Saviour's tone when he says of such 
seekers : '' Verily I say unto you, They have re- 
ceived their reward." 



86 MAGNA CHARTA OF THE KINGDOM OF GOD 

In regard to almsgiving and fast- 
1 6 1 8 ' ^^^ Jesus simply cautions against 

making a show of them ; and the 
disciplinary antidote is to make them as secret as 

possible. But in regard to prayer 
Ver. 5-8 there is another false reward which 

people sometimes seek. The one 
to which the Saviour has already referred is the 
mistake, or worse, of praying for men to see ; as 
if asking something from God were a meritorious 
action worthy of a reward, and fitted to give one a 
reputation for sanctity. What an entire denial of 
the nature of prayer ! To think that the asking 
for something, the desiring of something from the 
heavenly Father, is an action for which to arrogate 
to one's self merit. So thought of it indeed ceases 
to be prayer to God. It becomes not a sincere 
asking for something but a displaying of some- 
thing. It has its reward ; it is seen. That is all 
it wants. 

But the other false reward of 
Ver. 7, 8 which the Saviour speaks comes of 

making such a hardship of prayer 
that the person persuades himself by his own weari- 
ness that he has merited an answer. There is a 
sort of reward or self-approval in having done so 
much praying — being able to foot up such and 
such a sum of petitions of which one may keep 
tally. It is the idea of worship whose outward 
mark is the rosary. Surely God must be nearer 
to answering if the person has said it over fifty 
times than if he has said it only once. He must 
be admiringly sensible how persevering a service 



RIGHTEOUSNESS WHOSE REWARD IS OF EARTH 8/ 

we are making of it. Our much speaking cer- 
tainly must merit some consideration. Here again 
is a false reward which one may have immediately. 
It consists in the knowledge that we have prayed 
so many times, and to get that, one only needs to 
pray that many times and keep account. His 
rosary is his spiritual measure. 

All this indicates a false ideal of prayer which 
makes it necessary that the Saviour should pro- 
pose the true model. One makes prayer a thing 
which so glorifies the offerer that it may be dis- 
played and get him a reputation. Another makes 
it a thing which can gain consideration by its 
laboriousness. And all the time the God who 
sees in secret answers the real wish of the heart, 
and in truth knows what things we have need of 
before we ask him. Indeed, our praying is not 
bringing things to his consideration which he had 
not thought of before. Prayer deals with a God 
who is unchangeable hoHness and love. Its truest 
object is attained when we are brought up nearer 
to him. It would not be for our interest that his 
infinite goodness should be modified to conform to 
our wishes. But it is altogether for our interest that 
we should be brought to conform to his nature. 
This is the consummation of all human excellence 
to which we should most fervently look forward. 
We show ourselves children of the heavenly Father 
by wishing that his goodness may be all in all. 

And so that inimitable model of 
prayer which our Lord gives strikes Ver. 9-15 
this true keynote, and corrects the 
false conceptions of prayer. It is simply a picture 



55 MAGNA CHARTA OF THE KINGDOM OF GOD 

of how the child of God should aspire. 
Ver. 9, 10 Its first wish is that God's name may 
be glorified, hallowed, felt to be holy, 
and that his kingdom may come, and his will be 
done in earth as it is in heaven. This is the 
heavenward aspiration of the child 
Ver. 11 of God. Then in one brief peti- 
tion the legitimate earthly needs of 
God*s children are laid before him. It is no ex- 
travagant demand, no longing for miraculous suc- 
cors, or for any command of abnormal resources 
for the life. It is simply, '' Give us 
Ver. 12, 13 what we need for to-day." Then 
comes the thought of those things 
in ourselves which hinder God's will from a com- 
plete ascendency in us, our sins and our liability 
to temptation. We pray that our sins may be for- 
given, and that temptation may be averted and we 
delivered from the power of the evil one. So the 
prayer simply divides itself into this three-fold 
form — our goal or final wish, our earthly condition 
as we seek that goal, our hindrances in the striv- 
ing. All sums itself up in the wish that God 
may be supreme in us, that our wish may prevail, 
not as distinctively ours, but as taken up into union 
with his will. The prayer is not a striving for the 
victory of ourselves, but for the victory of God in 
us. Thus offered it does not admit of ostentation, 
of merit by repetition, of anything that exalts the 
self. It is the pure aspiration of that soul which 
wants God to rule it. 

In all the foregoing discussion of the principles 
which govern the act of worship we have been 



RIGHTEOUSNESS WHOSE REWARD IS OF EARTH 89 

contemplating the worshiper as an individual and 
his sinful debasing of the performance as a per- 
sonal act of ostentation or merit-seeking before 
men or God. It remains for us to note the appli- 
cation of our Lord's words to sincerity in public 
worship. Absolute sincerity in public worship is 
so difficult a thing to keep from degeneration that 
it must continually be labored for and repeatedly 
regained. It seems difficult to make it stay in 
position. A recurrence to the fundamental prin- 
ciple which underlies all supplication will reveal 
the secret of this unstable equilibrium and indicate 
the definite feeling which is essential to a sincere 
collective approaching of the throne of grace. 

The act of worship is so simple in its nature, 
and so exclusively single in its aim, that any ad- 
mixture of other acts and motives necessarily 
debases it. It is essentially a transaction between 
the soul and God alone. It is simply the act of 
wishful homage to the infinite Father. Jesus indi- 
cated its essentially private nature when he recom- 
mended the worshiper to enter into his inner 
chamber and shut the door, so as to exclude all 
external influences and distractions. We have 
seen that while he describes some phases or activi- 
ties of Christian character as intended to be pur- 
posely exhibited for the sake of their influence, he 
places almsgiving and fasting and prayer in an 
entirely different category. He seems to counsel 
even a painstaking concealment of these acts from 
men, lest the consciousness of spectators should 
debase their motive and so destroy their value. 

The difficulty of keeping public worship from 



90 MAGNA CHARTA OF THE KINGDOM OF GOD 

degeneration arises from the antagonism between 
the attribute of publicity and the nature of worship 
itself. At first sight, the words of Christ seem to 
deny the possibility of a public performance of real 
devotion. If the soul is transacting business with 
God alone, any additional reference to the specta- 
tor but divides its allegiance, and so destroys the 
singleness of the act. Just as almsgiving is simply 
and solely in order to relieve distress, and cannot 
be sincere when it introduces the motive of ex- 
hibiting itself, so prayer directs the whole energy 
of the requesting soul toward God and loses its 
sincerity when it adds to its aim any purpose of 
display. 

If, then, publicity necessarily introduced a double 
reference of the act, — toward God and toward the 
spectator, — it would inevitably have a debasing 
influence on the worship which it is intended to 
broaden. And though, on the other hand, such 
double reference is not necessary, yet nevertheless 
the nice adjustment of the divergent ideas of pub- 
licity and supplication may well be expected to 
maintain itself precariously, and so render sincerity 
in public worship a subject for ever-renewed re- 
forms and reinstatements. 

The collective participation by which worship is 
made a public act may be secured in two ways, and 
each causes its peculiar dangers to sincerity. In the 
one method the leader and the participants stand in 
the relation of speaker and audience. The leader 
utters, or, if he is a chorister, sings the words of 
prayer, and the worshipers participate by listening. 
This method is necessary when the worship is ex- 



RIGHTEOUSNESS WHOSE REWARD IS OF EARTH 9 1 

temporaneous in its form, or when, as in the case of 
ornate musical worship, the performance is too 
highly artistic to be conducted collectively by the 
general audience. The danger to sincerity accom- 
panying this method is obviously that of making the 
audience the object of the act and the dispenser of 
its reward. The worshipers have degenerated into 
enjoy ers or critics, and the leader is satisfied if he 
has made a good impression ; or with more praise- 
worthy but not less perverted aims, he has made 
them the object of didactic effort and the sole indi- 
cators of his success. The publicity has entirely 
swamped the supplication. It is no longer an act 
of worship, it is a performance before spectators. 
In its motive it comes squarely under the con- 
demnation of the Saviour, who said : '^ And when 
ye pray, ye shall not be as the hypocrites : for they 
love to stand and pray, . . that they may be 
seen of men." 

In the case of extemporaneous prayer, the con- 
sciousness of God and of the spectator, carried 
together in the mind, may destroy sincerity by 
intruding motives which are praiseworthy in their 
place, but destructive to singleness of aim. Not 
all adulteration is so bad as that vanity of sanctity 
with which the Pharisees debased their worship ; 
but, nevertheless, much public prayer which escapes 
the charge of hypocrisy may be insincere and per- 
verted in its purpose. The didactic spirit often 
enters in to divide the earnest mind, and the leader 
is found praying to his audience instead of to God. 
Revival prayers are sometimes palpably intended, 
not to be heard by God, but to be overheard by 



92 MAGNA CHARTA OF THE KINGDOM OF GOD 

sinners. Such practice is often called praying '*at" 
people. Its perverted character is made amusingly 
distinct in that anecdote of the good Christian 
brother in whom the spirit of exhortation wrought 
so strongly as to make him frequently tedious, and 
who, on being headed off at the point of rising to 
exhort by the pastor's request to lead in prayer, 
replied : '' I was about to make a few remarks, but 
perhaps I can throw them into the form of a 
prayer." Prayer which is in its form a talking to 
God, but in its spirit a talking to men, may be of 
some value as exhortation, but it is not sincere 
worship. 

The oratorical feeling too often enters into the 
heart of the leader, and constitutes a debasement 
some shades less excusable than the impulse to 
teach. Here even the benevolent intention of 
benefiting the hearer by the proclamation of truth 
is absent, and the praying becomes purely a dis- 
play of talent or a fine art. The secular reporter 
who characterized such an effort, on one occasion, 
as the most eloquent prayer ever offered to a Bos- 
ton audience, blundered, in his pagan appreciative- 
ness, upon the probable truth, that the act was in 
its spirit directed to spectators, rather than to the 
Hearer of prayer. 

As to concerted worship offered by trained mu- 
sicians, it needs hardly to be said that when the 
motive on their part is simply to please the ear, 
and that of the audience only to be entertained, 
the performance is in no sense worship, but simply 
a refined amusement whose proper place is the 
concert room. Nothing is here urged as to the 



RIGHTEOUSNESS WHOSE REWARD IS OF EARTH 93 

sin of such a performance except its obvious in- 
sincerity and hypocrisy in pretending to be the 
worship of God. It may be innocent, and even 
beneficial, in its place. But the verdict to be pro- 
nounced on such worshipers, as well as on the 
man who makes his praying an oratorical display, 
is only the sorrowful sentence which the Saviour 
gave to the hypocrites: ^^ They have received their 
reward." 

Such are the perils to sincerity when the leader 
and the participants are related as speaker and au- 
dience. But these evils are by no means inevitable. 
There may be just as sincere worship v/here one 
man does all the speaking, or even where partici- 
pation is by listening to the most artistic musical 
performance, as where all are joining in a concerted 
utterance. But the relation of leader and partici- 
pants must be rightly apprehended. He is not 
addressing them ; he, along with them, is address- 
ing God. There is a symbolical appropriateness in 
the attitude of the priest, in Romish and Episcopal 
churches, who turns his back to the audience to 
pray. In the intent of his act he does not face his 
flock ; he faces the same way, only ahead of them 
as their leader. 

Indeed, the term *^ public worship" is not the 
most exact possible ; the true act is rather social 
worship. All are together in one mind and one 
religious desire. For those who formulate their 
wishes with difficulty the praying becomes even 
more spontaneous and uplifting by being conducted 
in their hearing and for their assent, and it is pos- 
sible so to sweep along the spirit of the audience 



94 MAGNA CHARTA OF THE KINGDOM OF GOD 

by the powerful winged words of a divinely indited 
prayer that all shall be sincere participants in one 
unison of holy desire before the throne of grace; 
and thus are fulfilled the conditions of the Saviour's 
promise that where the two parties are agreed as 
touching anything that they shall ask, it shall be 
done for them by the Father in heaven. Nor is 
such a conception of concerted worship a contra- 
diction of the principle that sincere supplication is 
in its nature a private act, since leader and led are 
so at unity, and so isolated is each worshiper from 
all thought of extraneous observation, that their act 
is the act of one collective person, and thus, if we 
may so say, collectively secret. Offered in public 
the act may essentially be as if the doer were alone. 

The second way of securing collective participa- 
tion in worship is by a conventional form in which 
all may audibly take part ; and the danger besetting 
its sincerity is such as arises from the idolatry of 
form. A ritual or ceremonial feeling may some- 
times intrude itself, and the naive sincerity of the 
worship may be debased by the motive of perform- 
ing the sacred mystery as a meritorious thing in 
itself. Such worship transgresses the Saviour's 
second caution with regard to prayer : ^' Use not 
vain repetitions as the Gentiles do : for they think 
that they shall be heard for their much speaking." 
The worshiper is no longer directing a sincere de- 
sire to the God who seeth in secret, but rather is 
aiming to please the infinite Father by an orderly 
performance of external ceremonies. 

Public worship had fallen under this blight when 
the Saviour uttered the words : '' God is a Spirit : 



RIGHTEOUSNESS WHOSE REWARD IS OF EARTH 95 

and they that worship him must 
worship in spirit and truth," or John 4 : 24 
sincerity. Tlie woman of Samaria 
seemed to have Httle interest in the coming Mes- 
siah except that he might answer for her the ques- 
tion, whether men ought to worship in that mount- 
ain or at Jerusalem. Jesus rescued public worship, 
not only from all restriction to sacred places, but 
also from all necessary connection with sacred 
forms, by his divine watchword, ^^ Neither in this 
mountain, nor yet at Jerusalem, but in spirit and 
truth." 

If sincere worship is possible by means of mu- 
sical concert of action, it is also possible with a 
prescribed form of prayer. The rescue of imper- 
iled sincerity from the lifelessness of form is not 
necessarily by formlessness, nor by an extempora- 
neous shaping of the prayer at the moment of de- 
livery. There is no more virtue in a prayer com- 
posed on the spot, and participated in by listeners, 
than in a time-honored written form of supplica- 
tion. Jesus Christ himself gave a form of prayer; 
and this inimitable epitome of godly aspiration, as 
also indeed many of the hymns of the church, may 
often carry the soul to God as efficiently as even 
secret prayer burdened with the effort of outward 
expression. It is only when the form becomes so 
exacting as to be itself an object to the worshiper, 
claiming allegiance to itself alongside of God, that 
it destroys the singleness and value of the act of 
worship. 

The sole and sufficient safeguard for the sin- 
cerity of collective worship is that in its motive it 



96 iMAGNA CHARTA OF THE KINGDOM OF GOD 

shall be only secret worship enlarged ; so that 
whether listening in the great congregation to the 
voice of an inspiring leader, and participating in his 
holy fervor, or joining audibly in some form of ex- 
pression which is prescribed in order to facilitate 
concert of utterance, the worshiper shall in spirit 
enter into his closet, and, having shut the door, 
pray to his Father who is in secret, that the 
Father who seeth in secret may be his sole re- 
warder. 

In all this discussion we are made to see what a 
contrast there is between earthly rewards and the 
reward which comes from the heavenly Father. 
The mere earthly rew^ard may be accorded to ap- 
pearances ; the divine reward can come only from 
the knowledge of what we really are before infinite 
purity. The righteousness which seeks an earthly 
reward may be paraded ; that which thirsts after 
God's approval makes no bid for human praise. 
One is the righteousness of observance ; the other 
is the righteousness of perfection. One is suffi- 
ciently rewarded when it has transacted itself ac- 
cording to a finite standard, and been observed. It 
may be judged by men ; it may be computed and 
summed up. It has merited so much reputation 
for sanctity; it has been done over so many times 
and calls for proportionate consideration from God. 
The other is the righteousness which labors after 
the infinite. ''Be ye therefore perfect," is its goal 
and constant inspiration. The man never fully 
possesses his desire on the earth ; he hungers and 
thirsts after it. He never thinks of displaying his 
righteousness, for there is so much remaining to 



RIGHTEOUSNESS WHOSE REWARD IS OF EARTH 9/ 

complete his ideal that he has no disposition to 
boast. He looks forward with infinite longing and 
discontent to fill up the sum of goodness, rather 
than backward to keep a careful tally of his mer- 
itorious deeds. Thus the true man gets his ap- 
proval from the heavenly Father, the infinite Love. 
His reward is laid up in heaven. 



V 

THE HEAVENLY TREASURE 



L. •rc 



Matt. 6 : 19-34 



V 



Lay not up for yourselves treasures upon the earth, where 
moth and rust doth consume, and where thieves break through 
and steal : but lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where 
neither moth nor rust doth consume, and where thieves do not 
break through nor steal : for where thy treasure is, there will thy 
heart be also. The lamp of the body is the eye : if therefore thine 
eye be single, thy whole body shall be full of light. But if thine 
eye be evil, thy whole body shall be full of darkness. If therefore 
the light that is in thee be darkness, how great is the darkness ! 
No man can serve two masters : for either he will hate the one, 
and love the other ; or else he will hold to one, and despise the 
other. Ye cannot serve God and mammon. Therefore I say 
unto you. Be not anxious for your life, what ye shall eat, or what 
ye shall drink ; nor yet for your body, what ye shall put on. Is 
not the life more than the food, and the body than the raiment ? 
Behold the birds of the heaven, that they sow not, neither do they 
reap, nor gather into barns ; and your heavenly Father feedeth 
them. Are ye not of much more value than they? And which 
of you by being anxious can add one cubit unto his stature ? And 
why are ye anxious concerning raiment ? Consider the lilies of 
the field, how they grow ; they toil not, neither do they spin : yet 
I say unto you, that even Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed 
like one of these. But if God doth so clothe the grass of the field, 
which to-day is, and to-morrow is cast into the oven, shall he not 
much more clothe you, O ye of little faith? Be not therefore 
anxious, saying. What shall we eat ? or. What shall we drink ? or. 
Wherewithal shall we be clothed ? For after all these things do 
the Gentiles seek ; for your heavenly Father knoweth that ye have 
need of all these things. But seek ye first his kingdom, and his 
righteousness ; and all these things shall be added unto you. Be 
not therefore anxious for the morrow : for the morrow will be 
anxious for itself. Sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof. 

By a natural sequence we pass from the melan- 
choly spectacle of those who have ''received their 
reward" to the consideration of the nature and 



102 MAGNA CHARTA OF THE KINGDOM OF GOD 

place of the real treasure. To lay up a treasure 
is to make some possession or attainment one's 
highest wish. It is the seeking, striving, aspiring 
side of human nature to which Jesus appeals. The 
standpoint of the Beatitudes is that from which all 
this Sermon on the Mount is uttered : man is 
everywhere looked upon as seeking his own bless- 
edness, and the Saviour's moral teaching makes 
its appeal accordingly. Not the fearing or hating 
man, but the loving and desiring man is primarily 
subjected to the influence here exerted. Jesus 
knows that when he has the desires and the long- 
ings he has the man. The real wish is the man. 
Let one but catch sight of his own blessedness, 
and be awakened to the pursuit of it, and he is in 
the way of spiritual renewal. 

We recognize what the treasure spoken of is ; 

it is the kingdom of God. When 
Ver. 33 the Teacher says, ** Seek first his 

kingdom and his righteousness/' he 
is reiterating in other words the same advice with 
which he here sets out, '^ Lay not up for yourselves 
treasures on the earth . . . but lay up for your- 
selves treasures in heaven." Describing it as a 
treasure located in heaven defines more closely the 
nature of that kingdom. So great an idea as the 
kingdom of God cannot be defined in a single 
word. Parable after parable in the Saviour's 
teaching is put forth to show what the kingdom 
of God is like. The very word '^kingdom" is 
subject to erroneous apprehension. Briefly, it 
means the reign of God in the life, that condition 
of things in which God is obeyed. But at the 



THE HEAVENLY TREASURE IO3 

very outset it has to be pointed out that the obe- 
dience contemplated is not the mere mechanical 
conformity to the letter of the law, as one con- 
forms to a civil statute. It is the love which finds 
out and does all that the spirit of the law requires, 
whose high goal of attainment is, *^ Be ye per- 
fect." It is an obedience inspired by enthusiasm, 
and looking forward to its own completion as its 
blessedness. That completion of obedience — that 
kingdom of God — is a treasure for which the 
aspiring soul longs with infinite longing. Among 
the first similes with which it is described in parable 
are those of a pearl of great price and of a treasure 
hid in a field. While the Pharisee and the hypo- 
crite had a pinchbeck treasure, which they were 
drawing upon and exhausting every day, the 
Christian of the Beatitudes has a treasure laid up 
in heaven, where its power to enlist enthusiasm is 
eternally perpetuated. 

As a treasure securely laid up in heaven, com- 
pare it with the treasures for which men strive on 
the earth. The kingdom of God is not just now 
thought of in its imperative aspect ; it has become 
a possession, appealing in a way to the appetitive 
man, and calling out whatever is like acquisitive- 
ness in our spiritual nature. 

I. Observe first where this treas- 
ure is to be laid up, and wherein its Ver. 19-21 
preciousness consists. 

Let that which you value most be in heaven. 
The kingdom of God is a state of things not fully 
realized here. It belongs to the unseen and future 
world. It is called, especially in Matthew, the 



I04 MAGNA CHARTA OF THE KINGDOM OF GOD 

kingdom of heaven, because its motives, its char- 
acter, its high standard, are all drawn from heaven. 
It is that sphere of conduct which has its center 
and incentive in the ideal man. The ascendency 
of that ideal character in us is to be our most ar- 
dent longing, a treasure upon which, beyond all 
other treasures, our hearts' affections are placed. 

Heaven, then, as contemplated here, is that 
region of spirituality from which infinite incentives 
proceed. It is the throne of God. 
Matt. 5:34 It is that place of spiritual excel- 
lence, that infinite height, from which 
the voice of God makes itself heard in the soul, 
commanding its allegiance and attracting it upw^ard 
to higher attainment. Yet it is to be observed 
that New Testament thought does not conceive of 
all divine authority as appealing to us from heaven. 
There is a distinction in the place from which 
God's commands proceed, according to the nature 
of the appeal that he makes to us. 

A classical passage illustrating what is meant 
by heaven in its spiritual sense is 
Heb. 12 : 25 found in the Epistle to the Hebrews. 
It reads : ^' See that ye refuse not 
him that speaketh. For if they escaped not, when 
they refused him that warned them on earth, much 
more shall not we escape, who turn away from 
him that warneth from heaven." 
Heb. 12 : 18-21 The warning on the earth spoken 
of is the impressive self-revelation 
of God on Sinai. That speaking to men came 
down to them from the highest regions of au- 
thority. It was distinctively and divinely impera- 



THE HEAVENLY TREASURE IO5 

tive It was attended with supernatural marvels. 
It issued from visible heavens black with thick 
clouds, awfully vocal with rolling thunder and lurid 
with lightning. It enforced its pro- 
hibitions with the death penalty, as Deut. 32:35 
only God and those powers that are 
ordained of him have the right to Rom. 13 : 1-6 
do. One would say that if ever 
there was a speaking from the heavenly throne it 
was then. Yet the inspired writer says of all 
this, '' He spake on the earth, and he speaks more 
momentously to you from heaven." 
On the other hand the mountain 
of promulgation, to which the Chris- Heb. 12 121-24 
tians addressed were come, is called 
Mount Zion ; and we can only understand by it 
the highest beauty and joy and liberty and spiritual 
excellence of which just men made perfect are 
capable. The divine speaking in these last days, 
as it is elsewhere said to these same 
Christians, is by the Son. It is the Heb. i : i, 2 
welling-up of sonship in the heart. 
It gains ascendency as the divinely quickened soul, 
given power by faith to become a son of God, goes 
out to meet and ratifies the divine word. It is 
attended by no terrors of imperative promulgation. 
It inspires no sense of unyielding coercive author- 
ity from without. It is the moral appeal which 
accompanies the proclamation of 
Jesus Christ as the merciful high Heb. i, 2 
priest and Saviour. It is the 
measure of duty which the quickened and loyal 
soul places upon itself in the spirit of love. 



I06 MAGNA CHARTA OF THE KINGDOM OF GOD 

Such a speaking is distinguished from speaking 
on the earth, not by such awe-inspiring accessories 
as supernatural manifestations, astounding terrors, 
power of hf e and death, but by its intimate aUiance 
and co-operation with the soul itself. That which 
distinguishes heaven is not its external elevation, 
but its inwardness. It is in the soul. Its throne 
is in the ideal self. It is the voice of our eternal 
future giving us admonition and precept. When 
God speaks from our inner and true self, and fires 
us with anticipation, through faith, of our end in 
him, he speaks from heaven. Thus appealed to, 
our obedience is not consciously to an authoritative 
voice, but to an aspiring impulse ; our dread is not 
that of an outward infliction, but of an inward 
defilement ; our anticipation is not that of an 
awarded felicity, but of an attained purity and 
wholeness. The heaven from which incentives 
proceed, and where our treasure is placed, is in 
our inner and true, yet ideal and future selves. 
God so closely unites himself to us in the dis- 
pensation of his grace, that our deepest self is the 
very habitation of his throne. 

Such a heaven is not simply 2, post mo7't em 1^X2^0.^ 

of felicity. It is rather a realm of excellence and 

peace with which we may enter into the closest 

relations here and now. We do not have to wait 

until death for it. It is so close to us that all the 

truest impulses of our lives are drawn thence. If 

not our bodies, at least our hearts 

Ps. 91 : 1 may be in heaven. " The secret 

place of the Most High," described 

by the psalmist, is a place where even the earthly 



THE HEAVENLY TREASURE IO7 

saint may expect actually to dwell. To lay up 
our treasure in heaven, therefore, is not simply to 
have all our affections and anticipations centered 
in dying and being at rest in paradise. Such a 
condition of mind is natural only to the sick or the 
aged. But our having a heavenly treasure is con- 
sistent with the most whole-hearted interest in 
earthly things. Yet, after all, the heavenly aspira- 
tion is for that which is completed only in the 
eternal future. It contrasts itself with the phari- 
saic working to be seen of men, or with the avari- 
cious heaping up of gold, as the treasuring for the 
future contrasts with the hoarding for the present. 
Heaven is a contrast to earth. We are to place 
value on those excellencies which have an infinite 
reach and outlook. Up above us those things are, 
but up in a spiritual sense, that is, in the direction 
of the highest rank of being. The treasure is an 
attainment in spirituality ; laying it up is living in 
behalf of the inner and true self as that self com- 
prehends its own eternal consummation in the 
presence of God. 

It is, therefore, no unpractical or visionary thing 
so to live that our truest affections are in heaven. 
It is no indolent postponing of exertion after ex- 
cellence to some effortless clime where goodness 
shall be absorbed unconsciously. It is no selfish 
anticipation of simply getting revenge for the 
slights and hardships of life. The anticipation of 
our heaven transfigures all the activity of life with 
true and noble and eternal motive. It irradiates 
all life's experiences, however sad, with the bright 
hope of an eternal fruitage of good. 



I08 MAGNA CHARTA OF THE KINGDOM OF GOD 

The particular value for which Jesus recom- 
mends the heavenly treasure is, that it is durable 
and inalienable. The moth and rust do not dis- 
figure in heaven, nor do thieves dig 'through and 
steal. The desirableness of the heavenly treasure 
does not depend on a perishable beauty which men 
.admire, nor upon a transferable property value 
which men covet. Such attractions but tickle 
the senses, or gratify the acquisitive propensities. 
But the sense and appreciation of durableness is 
acquired by forethought and reasoning. The 
choosing of it in preference to immediate gratifica- 
tion means the curbing of imperious passion and 
the foregoing of temporary gratification for the 
sake of a higher good. To do it involves living in 
the higher nature — the region of judgment and fore- 
thought and self-denial. The advice might almost 
resolve itself into, '' Cultivate a sense for durable 
values." It is this which distinguishes the mature 
from the childish intellect, the civilized from the 
savage, the conscientious from the unscrupulous 
and vicious. Thus even in secular civilization 
there is a progress toward the sense for the dur- 
able. If we but couple with this elementary sense 
the spiritual knowledge of what is most durable 
and most inalienable — the perception of the one 
thing needful — we have true obedience to the 
Saviour's command, ^'Lay up for yourselves treas- 
ures in heaven." 

But the one element of durability and value more 
important than immunity from the moth and the 
thief, is the perpetual power of the heavenly treas- 
ure to enlist and satisfy the heart. It always re- 



THE HEAVENLY TREASURE IO9 

mains a treasure. '^ Where thy treasure is, there 
will thy heart be also." Beauty of costly vesture 
will by and by cease to give satisfaction. Value 
of coveted riches must shortly be relinquished. It 
is no treasure except so long as it is esteemed as 
such. The heart makes its own treasure, and the 
heart can get but temporary satisfaction in finite 
things. This restless heart of ours, 
in which God has set eternity, must EccI. 3 : ii 
find something which it may serve, 
and in which it can take delight forever ; and this 
it can find only in heaven, where infinite values 
dwell. After all, then, if we have found durable- 
ness, we have found in our treasure nothing short 
of infinity. Vanity thinks it finds value in human 
admiration. Political economy discovers it only in 
power to pass current in the market. But these 
elements of value are for the earth alone. They 
are only associated with ideas of personal distinc- 
tion and property. The one element of value more 
important than all is permanence; and the heavenly 
treasure possesses this, because it is eternally glori- 
ous, eternally inalienable, eternally satisfying and 
precious. 

2. But the Saviour now passes to 
the thought of how this treasure, Y^r. 22-34 
which has only durability to recom- 
mend it, shall compete for men's appreciation on an 
earthly stage. It does not seem to fill the same want 
that the earthly treasure fills. It may have dura- 
bility, but has it attracting power for the present } 
Especially in a world where the necessities of the 
body are very pressing, can the Saviour reasonably 



no MAGNA CHARTA OF THE KINGDOM OF GOD 

expect men to give up the anxious pursuit of neces- 
sary riches for the sake of a possession which can- 
not clothe the body or fill the mouth with food? 

The vital question is the question 
Ver. 22 23 ^^ appreciation. Will the man see 
the treasure ? It is worthy of notice 
how dependent is our spiritual development on the 
eye. It is the eye rather than the reasoning pow- 
ers on which the Saviour rests the capability -of 
having a treasure at all. The eye is the organ of 
the individual ; it acts only from the personal 
standpoint. It does not, like the logical devices 
of the reason, establish a common ground for col- 
lective knowledge. All cultivating, therefore, of 
the eye, bodily or spiritual, is a training in personal 
character and power of appreciation. 

The value of the treasure, then, is subjective. 
Heavenly excellence may exist in all its glory, but 
it sheds no light on the soul until that soul has 
eyes to see it. *^The lamp of the body is the eye : 
if therefore thine eye be single, thy whole body 
shall be full of light. But if thine eye be evil thy 
whole body shall be full of darkness." The great- 
est darkness is the darkness of impenetrability — 
the quenching of the light that is hi thee. The 
word single, as applied to the eye, is important. As 
the Saviour said in the Beatitudes that the pure — 
that is, unmixed — in heart should see God, so here 
he says that the single of eye shall see the infinite 
treasure. I presume there is no reference to the 
physiological fact that only as the rays of light 
converge to a single point on the retina of the eye 
is there a distinct image and clear vision. Such 



THE HEAVENLY TREASURE III 

an allusion would hardly have been possible with 
the Saviour's auditors. But there is in the figure 
an emphatic statement of the principle that only by 
single spiritual allegiance is the vision for infinite 
values kept clear. Moral obliquity will ever divide 
and cloud the soul's sight. 

The thought, therefore, naturally 
passes to that of divided allegiance. Ver. 24 
•' No man can serve two masters." If 
a man would appreciate and rejoice in the heavenly 
treasure, he must make God the absolute ruler of his 
heart. His treasure is that which masters him and 
calls out all his enthusiasm. And it must master him 
in a different way from that in which mere acquis- 
itiveness masters a man. The heavenly treasuring 
and the earthly proceed from opposite impulses, 
that can be mingled only at the cost of debasing 
and neutralizing each other. *^ Ye cannot serve 
God and mammon." 

This principle of the incompatibility of God's 
service and that of riches becomes somewhat diffi- 
cult exactly to define when we undertake to reduce 
it to practice. It does not mean that only those 
who renounce all secular occupations and assume 
a life of poverty can render acceptable service to 
God. It does not mean that the earthly responsi- 
bility is to be borne in any half-hearted manner, as 
if God were jealous of all except absolutely neces- 
sary interest, on the part of his children, in this 
world and its prosperity. The best Christian may 
be the most diligent in business, and the most 
nobly eager for success in business, which is the 
making of money. As Ruskin says : 



112 MAGNA CHARTA OF THE KINGDOM OF GOD 

"All healthily minded people like making money — ought 
to like it, and to enjoy the sensation of winning it ; but the 
main object of their life is not money ; it is something bet- 
ter than money." He goes on to say : " You cannot serve 
two masters ; you must serve one or the other. If your 
work is first with you, and your fee second, work is your 
master, and the lord of work, who is God. But if your fee 
is first with you, and your work second, fee is your master, 
and the lord of fee, who is the devil ; and not only the 
devil, but the lowest of devils — the ' least erected fiend 
that fell.' " 

The principle is, that the longing for an infinite 
reward and acquisitiveness, or self-seeking, are en- 
tirely distinct motives. They cannot mingle. If 
one serves God he must do so unselfishly, and with 
utter absorption in a higher object than earthly 
good. The natural impulse for acquisition — the 
self-regarding impulse, which when given supreme 
sway issues in mammon-worship — is absent from 
the service of God. That which we have of it be- 
longs to the life of this world, not to the distinctive 
life of the sons of God. It is necessary to state 
this, because we are contemplating the heavenly 
kingdom in the light of a treasure. It is natural 
to think of the laying of it up as a kind of higher 
and wiser self-seeking. Let it be seen, then, that 
the heavenly treasure is sought and valued by an 
absolutely unselfish impulse, and one that is en- 
tirely distinct from the self -regarding impulse, or 
acquisitiveness. The value of that treasure is not 
property value. Ideas of ownership, of self as an 
end, of property, can be mingled with the service 
of God only at the expense of debasing and de- 
stroying the pure motive from which that service 



THE HEAVENLY TREASURE II3 

proceeds. Ye cannot serve God and mammon in 
the one act. 

Heaven, therefore, as the reward of the right- 
eous, cannot be looked upon as a selfish acquisi- 
tion. The motives with which one truly serves 
God are not at all such motives as those with 
which one works for wages. As to the happiness 
of his soul in its disembodied state, the godly man 
trusts his heavenly Father for that, and closes his 
eyes in unselfish peace. Mere post mortem felicity 
is not an object of striving; divine grace is the 
assurance of future happiness, and no merit of the 
man's own can make this any surer. But the re- 
ward which he seeks and anticipates is the eternal 
truth and holiness for its own sake. Eternal life 
is the high goal and standard of all his strivings, 
and this reward he begins to get when his inner 
and deepest man is at harmony with infinite good- 
ness, whether he has entered on the unseen exist- 
ence or not. Nor is this personal excellence which 
he seeks a surpassing trait whose value to him is 
simply that it distinguishes him, and makes him con- 
scious of merit. Entirely apart from the thought 
of exclusive ownership, the eternal goodness is an 
attainment which enlists his enthusiasm. 

Now the objection may arise, that while this may 
be very good theory, the carrying out of such an 
unselfish principle is impracticable. You may 
very likely question whether any one ever lived a 
life of striving for some abstract truth or lofty at- 
tainment without reference to the property value 
or distinguishing merit of that attainment for him- 
self. But does not some such thing often happen 

H 



114 MAGNA CHARTA OF THE KINGDOM OF GOD 

ill the realm of art and science ? The true artist 
is absorbed in an ideal which he is seeking to 
shadow forth on his canvas. Is his seeking a selfish 
aspiration ? Some idea and vision of beauty has 
possessed and mastered him. It is not simply for 
the vulgar honor of being the exponent of that high 
ideal to the world that he labors. Honor of course 
is grateful, but the successful embodiment of his 
ideal is a different and far less selfish gratification. 
It is for his ideal's sake that he labors, and not for 
his own. Moreover, he cannot worthily serve his 
ideal and mammon at the same time. In so far as 
he labors simply for his market he debases his art. 
He knows that entire absorption in the highest 
artistic excellence is a different thing from the 
thrifty looking to immediate profit. He often has 
to interrupt his highest labors for years, feeling the 
regret and deprivation all the time, that he may 
meet the wants of this life. This he calls pot- 
boiling. If he becomes successful in bread-and- 
butter art, and as a consequence begins to lose his 
vision and longing for his higher ideal, he con- 
demns himself. The truest artistic striving is 
unselfish and entirely distinct from ambition or 
avarice. 

Truth too, apart from its immediate utility, may 
become a treasure which will absorb the man's 
whole desire and striving. The pursuit of it may 
be for its own sake, and by an entirely unselfish 
impulse. The great scientist, Agassiz, said that he 
had no time to make money. Yet if he had chosen 
he might have turned his scientific knowledge and 
reputation to great account in enriching himself. 



THE HEAVENLY TREASURE II5 

Look again at the patient and laborious life of 
Darwin. Here was a man who, possessed of in- 
dependent means, devoted all his life and great 
amounts of money to the patient investigation of 
facts in nature. Was he seeking personal distinc- 
tion for himself.'* Did the preciousness of his 
treasure consist in the fact that it was his exclu- 
sively .'* Can we charge him with acting all his life 
on the mere vulgar desire to be the introducer of 
novelties ? We should be unjust to him if we did. 
Perhaps, on the other hand, we can hardly go so 
far as to credit him with working distinctively and 
solely for his fellow-men. He had caught sight of 
truth and had fallen in love with it. He was seek- 
ing truth for its own sake. To know facts, to be 
able to classify and generalize the results of his 
observation, was in itself his exceeding great re- 
ward. Whatever we may think of the theory that 
has grown out of his study, he has certainly en- 
riched the world immensely with established facts. 
And all this labor he undertook, we may believe, 
not with the motive of making his fortune, or of 
distinguishing himself, but simply for the sake of 
knowing. The same may be said of the work of 
Galileo, Copernicus, Newton, Pasteur, Roentgen. 
These looked for a treasure which the thief could 
not get, and which was not subject to moth and rust. 
Once secured, it was the possession of the world, and 
its result of enlarging the world's intellectual ho- 
rizon was a permanent one. Thus we see how, even 
in secular affairs, a man may become engaged in 
the pursuit of an abstract and unseen good, a 
treasure which is immaterial and unfading:. 



Il6 MAGNA CHARTA OF THE KINGDOM OF GOD 

In the pursuit of truth for its own sake, as in 
the cultivation of the highest art, the man cannot 
serve his high end and mammon at the same time. 
God is hght, or truth, and as truth he can be wor- 
shiped only with a single allegiance. The teacher 
who is penetrated simply with the thought that he 
must keep his position and make his account by 
teaching what his employers prescribe is incapac- 
itated, so far as that thought rules him, for the in- 
dependent search for truth. In fact, it is not his 
business as an employed teacher to prosecute orig- 
inal investigations ; it is to diffuse that knowledge 
which is regarded as established. Original research 
can hold out no promise of enrichment for this life. 
Subserviency to mammon dims the eyesight for the 
infinite value of undiscovered truth. The same 
applies to all that is of infinite reach and precious- 
ness, as contrasted with what is under finite com- 
prehension and control so as to be simply useful 
for the life. If you would have its light shine upon 
you, keep the light of the body clear. If you would 
make the infinite your mastering enthusiasm and 
treasure, serve it with a single allegiance. Do not 
mingle thrift with devotion to the ideal, whether it 
be in the realm of beauty or truth or moral excel- 
lence. It will debase it ; it will darken the eye of 
your soul. ''Ye cannot serve God and mammon." 
There is no doubt then, that the entirely un- 
selfish pursuit of the infinite treasure may become 

more attractive and engaging than 
Ver. 25-34 ^^^ amassing of earthly riches. But 

Jesus now turns to those upon whom 
earthly striving makes its fiercest demand, namely. 



THE HEAVENLY TREASURE llj 

the necessitous. Can we expect these to remit 
their anxiety for the sake of a treasure which has 
only durability to recommend it ? We might say : 
*' It is easy enough to talk about striving for an 
unseen and permanent treasure if we are so situ- 
ated that we do not have to give thought to the 
question of maintenance. But as long as our 
earthly life has to be passed in the getting of those 
things which are consumed in the using, so that 
we have to get them over and over again as we use 
them up, it is difficult to find any pursuit more 
fiercely engaging than this. How then can the 
service of the heavenly Master be so single-hearted 
as a clear vision of his glory requires } " 

Let it be understood, that in speaking of the ac- 
quisitive impulse as a contrast to that enthusiasm 
by which one seeks the kingdom of God, I do not 
mean to imply that this is a sinful impulse and that 
all the life of acquisition must be replaced by an 
entirely unselfish striving for unseen good. The 
kingdom of heaven is not a new profession or occu- 
pation which excludes and renders unlawful those 
pursuits by which we acquire wealth, but it is a 
leaven which pervades and ennobles all our earthly 
care and labor. The eager and even absorbed pur- 
suit of earthly necessities remains, on the level of 
this world, as the inert lump into which the leaven 
of the kingdom is placed until the whole is leav- 
ened, giving us, as the result in our active life, not 
all leaven, that is, all unworldly rapture, but a leav- 
ened lump of victorious striving, having its earthly 
body of present achievement, and its heavenly soul 
of eternal life. 



Il8 MAGNA CHARTA OF THE KINGDOM OF GOD 

The earnest striving for the things necessary to 
the body is presupposed. People do not have to 
be commanded to do this. Necessity will drive 
them. But the life of the kingdom of heaven in 
the soul will mitigate the anxiety of that striving. 
Concerning these very pressing necessities the 
Saviour says, '* Be not anxious." And the very 
potent consideration which lightens anxiety is the 
truth that the God whom we serve is a loving 
Father. He is not only an infinite Glory of Holi- 
ness in whom our souls may become absorbed, but 
he is an infinite Heart of Love who cares for us, 
knows our needs, and may be trusted to provide. 
The life of aspiration is also a life of trust. As 
the Christian trusts God without stipulation for the 
happiness of his soul beyond the grave^ and mean- 
while goes on undistracted in his striving for near- 
ness to his purity, so also he trusts the same God 
for the supply of whatever may be necessary here 
below ; and thus his honest labor for a maintenance 
is made no less assiduous and prudent, and at the 
same time far more confident and hopeful. Our 
heavenly Father feeds the birds of the air, which 
neither sow nor reap nor gather into barns, and we 
may call ourselves much more worthy of a holy and 
loving Being's regard. He clothes the lilies, which 
neither toil nor spin, in such a beauty as Solomon 
in all his glory never equaled ; and if he is worthy 
of our faith he cannot but do much more for us. 
If things go by the disposal of an intelligent and 
loving Being here below, then trust in him and 
conformity to his nature is not only the highest 
good, but the best condition of any prosperity which 



THE HEAVENLY TREASURE IlQ 

a true heart would be willing to accept. Anxiety 
is utterly useless ; it cannot add to our stature one 
cubit. But the appreciation and anticipation of the 
heavenly treasure, while the direct condition of the 
truest good, is also a confidence in God which 
keeps necessity from overbearing our integrity and 
overwhelming us in discouragement. It makes the 
person sure that the highest abstract good is not 
only integrity and purity, but that these are the 
only good which will pay in the long run. 

That which we should want most, even in the 
midst of our earthly necessities, is the kingdom and 
righteousness of God. Whatever else yields, let not 
that. Seek that as of first importance. For the 
rest, let us in our most prudent striving trust God. 
With the integrity and love which his kingdom pro- 
duces in the life, we shall be surest of providential 
supply. It is not the most ravenous beast that 
gets the most constant supply of food. It is not 
the thief that in the long run gets the best living. 
It is the man who by his unselfish goodness lays 
humble ones all around him under the greatest 
debt of gratitude who is surest of human succor 
in his helplessness. It is the honest and true man 
who is surest of forbearance and sympathy when 
he experiences reverses. ** The 
young lions do lack, and suffer hun- Ps. 34 : 10 
ger : but they that seek the Lord 
shall not want any good thing." ^^ All these 
things " which we need are far surer to come if 
we seek first the kingdom and the righteousness 
of God, than if our first and supreme motive is the 
conscienceless scheming to get on. 



I20 MAGNA CHARTA OF THE KINGDOM OF GOD 

Even our earthly striving will be 
Ver. 34 most efficient when unclouded by 

anxiety. Prudence would dictate 
that we should not let the anxiety of to-morrow 
crowd itself upon to-day. '* The morrow will be 
anxious for itself. Sufficient unto the day is the 
evil thereof." Even in our most absorbed concern 
for the earthly need, we strive best in the con- 
fidence of the kingdom of God. There may be 
no mingling of the service of God with that of 

mammon, but at the same time god- 
I Tim. 4 : 8 liness is profitable for all things, 

having promise of the life which 
now is, and of that which is to come. Thus the 
Saviour who prescribes a morality of the highest 
idealism is so mindful of our legitimate earthly 
needs as to show us the path of the truest worldly 
prudence. The kingdom of heaven is a treasure 
worthy of our supreme effort both now and here- 
after. 



VI 

CORRECTIVES OF EGOISM 



Matt 7 : 1-12 



VI 



Judge not, that ye be not judged. For with what judgement ye 
judge, ye shall be judged : and with what measure ye mete, it 
shall be measured unto you. And why beholdest thou the mote 
that is in thy brother's eye, but considerest not the beam that is in 
thine own eye ? Or how wilt thou say to thy brother. Let me 
cast out the mote out of thine eye ; and lo, the beam is in thine 
own eye? Thou hypocrite, cast out first the beam out of thine 
own eye ; and then shalt thou see clearly to cast out the mote out 
of thy brother's eye. 

Give not that which is holy unto the dogs, neither cast your 
pearls before swine, lest haply they trample them under their feet, 
and turn and rend you. 

Ask, and it shall be given you ; seek, and ye shall find ; knock, 
and it shall be opened unto you : for every one that asketh re- 
ceiveth ; and he that seeketh findeth ; and to him that knocketh it 
shall be opened. Or what man is there of you, who, if his son 
shall ask him for a loaf, will give him a stone ; or if he shall ask 
for a fish, will give him a serpent? If ye then, being evil, know 
how to give good gifts unto your children, how much more shall 
your Father which is in heaven give good things to them that ask 
him ? All things therefore whatsoever ye would that men should 
do unto you, even so do ye also unto them : for this is the law and 
the prophets. 

In this section of the Mountain Sermon Jesus 
is giving advice in view of a certain great fact of 
human nature from which we cannot free our- 
selves. It is a fact which hardly attracts the 
common attention because we rarely think what it 
would be to be without it. Yet it is a fact which 
it is our duty, just as far as we can, to rise above, 
at least to take into account in all our judgments 
of character, and make the very considerable cor- 
rections which are required in every estimation of 

123 



124 MAGNA CHARTA OF THE KINGDOM OF GOD 

desert on account of it. Jesus sees the fact clearly, 
and knows how to lay down rules in view of it, 
because as the Son of God he is above it. 

This fact is our individuality. I am so shut 
within myself that you cannot enter into my men- 
tal state or consciousness, so as to realize exactly 
how things seem to me. You are shut within 
yourself in the same way. All my experiences 
are mine in such a way that the full consciousness 
of them cannot be imparted. All your experiences 
are in the same \vay exclusively yours. Whatever 
you or I think or do, we constantly take into ac- 
count ourselves as thinking or doing it. We do 
nothing impersonally ; there is in every mental act 
the feeling of ourselves as performing it. Any 
such thing as moral character would be impossible 
without this fact. Unless I knew what motives 
are worth, and what I am as affected by motives 
and doing deeds, I should perform no moral judg- 
ment on myself while I am doing deeds, and should 
have nothing in me on which condemnation or 
approval could be based. Good or evil could not 
belong to my actions. This individuality, this 
consciousness of ourselves as doing what we do, is 
what makes our moral life possible. Yet the fact 
that each of us is conscious of himself as of no 
one else is a fact which incapacitates us for some 
things in the spiritual world, and a fact which must 
therefore be taken into account in our moral 
judgments. 

We do not look at ourselves or our actions from 
an impartial viewpoint. This is emphatically true 
when we compare ourselves with others. Each 



CORRECTIVES OF EGOISM I 25 

of US judges from a point within himself. Any 
other one seeing the same thing sees it differently, 
because it is from within himself, and with the 
consciousness of his relation to it, that he views it. 
So it comes to pass that the comparative merits of 
men are judged exclusively from separate apart- 
ments. It is as if each of us saw a wide landscape 
from a small aperture. Each of us sees it differ- 
ently, and none of us is competent to describe it 
as a whole. It is evident that if there is to be 
any true judging of character it must be by some 
one who can view it without the confining effect 
of this individuality of ours. Some one who is 
able to judge himself in comparison with others, 
from a point of view superior to both sides, alone 
can be the judge of the world. If we could only 
get above ourselves and see things as God sees 
them, then we should be competent to say whether 
I am better than you, or you are better than I. 
But we never get entirely above ourselves. We 
always remain individuals, viewing life from the 
personal basis which is natural to us. Under the 
influence of the spirit of Christ we make progress 
toward getting upon the higher plane for seeing. 
Just in proportion as God's Spirit possesses us we 
have some conception of how we and all men look 
in God's sight. When, indeed, we come to see 
ourselves as God sees us, we call it conviction of 
sin ; and it is this profound sense of sin which 
makes us ask for God's forgiveness. Yet there 
always remains the fact that we are individuals — 
a fact which, with all our effort, we never entirely 
rise above. 



126 MAGNA CHARTA OF THE KINGDOM OF GOD 

Now this fact I have described as simply as I 
can. Perhaps it may seem a somewhat abstract 
conception to introduce into this very practical dis- 
course of the Saviour's ; but this fact is the basis 
and presupposition of what Jesus has to say here, 
and therefore must be pointed out that we may 
understand his words. We may as well go on and 
find a name for this psychological fact of human 
nature; for if we have it named we shall get along 
the better in dealing with it. We will call it ego- 
ism — that is, the influence of the egOy the I, that 
lies at the basis of each human character. This 
egoism shuts each of us up to his own individual 
view of things, and thus makes his personal judg- 
ments too narrow to be universally true. 

It is evident that if any one is to judge the world 
rightly, and pronounce just sentence on it, he must 
be able to extricate himself from the influence of 
this ego. He must be able not only to see my side 
as I see it, and at the same time to see your side as 
you see it, but he must be above us both, so as to 
see things as neither of us sees them. He must be 
able to look down upon us from a point above the 
individual entirely. He must be able to judge the 
matter, not as it affects either of us, nor as it 
affects him personally, but as it affects the truth 
of things. Thus viewed, my dealing with you, 
which may look very badly as seen with your eyes, 
or your dealing with me, which may have made me 
very indignant, shall be judged by one who enters 
with infinite nearness into the feeling of both of 
us in the matter, and yet at the same time sees it 
all from the height of an infinite equality of justice 



CORRECTIVES OF EGOISM 12/ 

such as you and I never perfectly attain. The 
Judge of all the earth must be more than an indi- 
vidual. 

Jesus professes to be able to judge in this higher 
way. He sees us from God's viewpoint because he 
is the Son of God. He sees from our own because 
he is the Son of man, the general man, the spirit 
of humanity. He says that this fact of his being 
the Son of man is why God has given 
him power to execute judgment. He John 5 : 27, 30 
says too, that if he judges, his judg- 
ment is just, because he seeks not his own will, but 
the will of him that sent him ; that is, he has God's 
purposes and God's way of looking 
at things. In still another place he John 8 : 14 
says very suggestively that though 
he bears witness of himself his testimony is true, 
because he knows whence he comes and whithei 
he goes; which seems to indicate that he is vividly 
and practically conscious of that infinite aspect of 
his personality which surrounds his present exist- 
ence as an eternal origin and destiny, — that greater 
life which is higher than mere indi- 
viduality, — so that, even though he Cf. 2 Cor. 5 : 16 
became flesh, or individual, he judges 
not after the flesh ; even his account of himself is 
preserved from the narrowing and vitiating effects 
of egoism. Such a judge have we ; and we can 
rejoice on being judged by this wonderful Being, 
for we know that we shall be rightly appreciated. 
We shall be more justly appreciated than we ap- 
preciate ourselves, and far more justly than any 
other man appreciates us. 



128 MAGNA CHARTA OF THE KINGDOM OF GOD 

But think what such judgment means. I say 
we shall be more justly appreciated than we appre- 
ciate ourselves. If we so live that our only basis 
for any kind of self-approval, or even self-respect, 
is our warped and bigoted egoism, then judged 
from a divine point of view we shall be condemned. 
We are condemned, indeed, whenever we come to 
see ourselves from the divine side. It carries the 

sharpest consciousness of sin to our 
John i6 : 8 hearts. It convicts us '' in respect 

of sin," and we call it the work of 
the Holy Spirit. But if we so live and believe 
and love that it is our highest joy to be judged by 
universal and divine judgment, and we know that 
the judgment cannot destroy our self-respect, be- 
cause we derive that self-respect, not from our own 
merit, but from the free grace, or unmerited favor, 
of God, then the judgment cannot harm us any. 
We welcome it. We rejoice in it. We want God's 

thought of us to penetrate us fully. 
Ps. 139 : 23, 24 With the psalmist, we ask him to 

search us and know our hearts, to 
try us and know our thoughts, to see if there be 
any way of wickedness in us, and to lead us in the 
way of eternity. The higher, the divine and im- 
partial judgment, is what we long for with unspeak- 
able longing. It gives us all our sense of worth, 
for it plants us ever more firmly on the divine 
grace and pardon. 

Now Jesus says that this fact of egoism unfits 
us to be judges of others in comparison with our- 
selves. Any general judgment into which others 
enter as elements of the problem is above us as 



CORRECTIVES OF EGOISM I 29 

individuals. We cannot be entirely sure of doing 
it with perfect justice. Of course, we must per- 
form some moral judgments on our own actions 
within ourselves. As we have seen, there can be 
no moral character without it. But in relation to 
others, and especially when our personal feeling 
enters into the problem, the Saviour says ** Judge 
not." Refrain from it. Be afraid 
that your egoism will vitiate the re- Matt. 7 \ 1 
suits. Be cautious, for fear you will 
be unjust and uncharitable. In order to be a real 
judge you must stand on a level above individu- 
ality as the Saviour does. This you may do to a 
degree, but it will always be imperfectly, so that 
the work you do in that kind will always have 
elements of injustice which you cannot see. 

If, then, we cannot entirely rise to the level of 
God's judgments and abide there, we can only do 
the next best thing. We can learn as far as pos- 
sible to consider things from each other's point of 
view. Not the level that is higher than either of 
us is entirely attainable by individuals, but the po- 
sition that is common to both of us. By the love 
of my neighbor I may learn to weigh aright his 
moral judgments. My egoism must remain, but 
I can broaden it so as in a sense to include his. 
I may not see the landscape in wide-open view 
from the high post of observation, but I may see it 
from a multitude of different restricted points, and 
by the spirit of Christ be able to form a pretty good 
conception of it. This shall affect my action and 
make me charitable ; but even thus I do not pre- 
sume in any extensive way to set up as a judge. 

T 



130 MAGNA CHARTA OF THE KINGDOM OF GOD 

Remaining individuals then, as we must, we need 
to apply certain correctives to our wa3^s of looking 
at things. If we insist on seeing only our side of 
any affair between us and our neighbor, we shall 
not be able to get at even so correct a view as is 
attainable within the bounds of our individuality. 
We shall think only of our own selfish wishes, and 
shall be censorious because our neighbor does not 
recognize them as we do. We shall feel like de- 
manding recognition for merits of which we may 
be conscious, but which have never come abroad 
so as to do anybody any good. It will be the great 
/ going forth into the world, and demanding, the 
same respect from other men which it has for 
itself. It will be the man, not conscious of his 
faults by which other men suffer, because he has 
ways of excusing them to himself, and yet at the 
same time well alive to the faults of his neighbor, 
without his neighbor's excusing consciousness — 
and this man demanding that all estimations of his 
own and his neighbor's relative merits shall be by 
his measure and no other. Thus acting, men be- 
come selfish and oppressive. They judge harshly. 
They condemn cruelly. There is no getting on 
common ground so as to compose any difficulty 
which may arise between neighbors. Men must, 
therefore, learn to use certain correctives in their 
estimation of affairs between themselves and their 
neighbors. Just as the astronomer cannot get to 
the center of the universe to observe the heav- 
enly bodies in their true relations, and hence has 
to make corrections from his standpoint on the 
earth for what he calls parallax, so we in adjusting 



CORRECTIVES OF EGOISM I3I 

our relations to our neighbors must take account of 
that parallax which is the result of our egoism. 

The first corrective consideration 
is the fact that we must submit to Ver, 1, 2 
the same judgment that we give. 
Our neighbor has his way of viewing things, as 
well as we, and we shall be judged by him as we 
judge him. ^^ With what judgement ye judge, ye 
shall be judged, and with what measure ye mete, 
it shall be measured to you again." My own deal- 
ings I have estimated by my standard, but let me 
remember that these must go through the opera- 
tion again according to some one's else standard. 
If I have been merciful, I have done much to make 
others merciful to me. If I have been strictly fair, 
I have taken the surest course to secure fair play 
for myself. If I have tried to estimate and act 
upon matters as they would appear to my brother, 
I have forestalled his judgment of me. I expect 
only that which it is his disposition to give. That 
is all I demand. I refrain from 
judging, and I am not judged. I i Cor. 11:31 
measure with liberal allowances for 
diverse views, and I receive the same measure. I 
give good measure, pressed down and running over, 
and men can hardly help giving me the same. 

Have you ever met men who have a perpetual 
grievance against society ? Some men always have 
something to be dissatisfied about. Somebody is 
forever getting unfair advantages over them, or 
trying to crowd them to the wall. It seems as if 
they happened in life to fall in with the worst lot 
of neighbors any one ever had. Their grocer and 



1^2 MAGNA CHARTA OF THE KINGDOM OF GOD 

their butcher cheat them, and their plumber grows 
rich by them, and the government taxes them 
to death, and the whole world is banded against 
them. They are all the time fighting a hostile 
alliance and beating back attack. Now you do 
not hear all men complain in this way. What 
is the matter.'^ It is largely in the man himself. 
He is constantly demanding and expecting as 
his right more than his neighbors can give. He 
looks only on his own side of things, and thus he 
seems to himself to be the worst-treated of men. 
He suspects everybody, and where he suspects he 
finds. Indeed, it is not unlikely that many of his 
neighbors feel as if a man so exacting were their 
lawful prey, if they can only get the better of him. 
They know him to be on the watch for the best 

hold upon them, and human nature 
Man. 26 : 52 prompts them to retaliate. Jesus 

says, ** They that take the sword 
shall perish with the sword." When you are 
armed you must expect to be treated as an armed 
man. But let this man who is so ill-treated be- 
come a merciful, charitable, generous man, he w^ill 
soon find then that his neighbors have become 
different from what they were. It is not only 
because they are actually different toward him, 
but because he sees them differently. He applies 
the corrective to his observation of things, namely, 
that it is only fair that he should be judged by the 
judgment with which he judges ; and he finds that 
the correction evens up the equation, and makes 
his estimation of himself and his neighbor much 
more just and satisfactory. 



CORRECTIVES OF EGOISM 1 33 

Then Jesus points out the ab- 
surdity of a man with a beam of Ver. 3-5 
wood in his own eye, going to his 
brother and saying, '* Let me take the mote out 
of thine eye." The saying has become a proverb. 
It is portable ; we can carry it in our memory and 
introduce it as a formula into our moral figuring. 
'^ First cast out the beam out of thine own eye, and 
then shalt thou see clearly to cast out the mote 
out of thy brother's eye." 

The first corrective for egoism 
therefore is, Remember that you Ver. 6 
must submit to the same judgment 
which you give. Now the next piece of advice in 
view of the fact that each of us has a different in- 
dividuality is, that we are to consider the character 
of the receiver when we bestow anything. This 
fact that we each have a different outlook makes it 
impossible to bestow gifts indiscriminately and ex- 
pect a uniformity of effect. What is a grateful 
present to one may be an insult to another. What 
is kindly meant may rightly produce offense when 
seen through the other's eyes. The habit of hav- 
ing a living, active sympathy with others, by which 
we may justly divine their feelings, will guard us, 
not only from harsh judgments, but from stupid 
benefactions. You have seen people with the 
kindest hearts and the most unselfish dispositions 
who are always getting somebody offended with 
them. They do kindnesses stupidly, and without 
considering what the kindnesses are to the receiver. 
Closely akin to this is that not uncommon fatuity 
in society of introducing pleasantries or witticisms 



134 MAGNA CHARTA OF THE KINGDOM OF GOD 

which to another than the speaker's preoccupied 
perception are ridiculous or embarrassing, a fault 
which results from a deficiency in the sense of 
humor, which is only another name for lack of 
sympathy. Still another form of egoistic stupidity 
is the dull iteration in public address of arguments 
or observations totally removed from the sphere of 
thought to which the hearer is accustomed. Such 
didactic effort may result from a genuine desire to 
impart a benefit, and yet the person's absorbed 
egoism keeps him from getting on common ground 
with the person to be taught. That which we call 
culture and good-breeding has as one of its surest 
signs the disposition which can enter into all shades 
of feeling, and consider what shall make those 
happy around us. We call this trait tact. It is a 
trait well worthy of being encouraged as it is in 
the Saviour's Sermon on the Mount. 

The second corrective, then, in view of the fact 
of egoism, is that we are to consider the position 
of the receiver when we give. This also is stated 
in proverbial form, and in such a striking way that 
none can fail to remember it. ** Give not that 
which is holy unto the dogs, neither cast your 
pearls before the swine, lest haply they trample 
them under their feet, and turn and rend you." 

But now a third truth comes in, 
Ver. 7-12 which is simply the other side of 
what has just been said. All through 
this discourse on egoism runs the principle. Turn 
about and apply your rule from the other side. So 
this rule, '' Give not that w^hich is holy unto the 
dogs," is to be turned about. We must apply it 



CORRECTIVES OF EGOISM 1 35 

to ourselves. If those who do not appreciate nor 
desire them are not to have unwise gifts from us, 
remember that it would be equally unwise for God 
to give us spiritual gifts if we do not appreciate 
nor want them. This is especially true of the 
highest gifts. We may expect God 
to give his best things — and Luke Luke ii : 13 
has it, his Spirit — only as we want 
them and ask for them. We receive only as we 
appreciate. This is the rule we are to heed in 
giving : we must expect to abide by the same in 
receiving. 

*'Ask," says the Saviour, *^ and it 
shall be given you ; seek, and ye Ver. 7, 8 
shall find ; knock, and it shall be 
opened unto you." This may be taken as a prom- 
ise that the one who asks shall receive ; but it is 
especially to be taken, as I believe, as a statement 
of the condition of receiving, as much as to say : 
'' How can you expect to receive unless you ask } 
You are not fit for the gift unless you want it. It 
is the one who asketh that receiveth, the one who 
seeketh that findeth. If you do not desire the 
things given, you would run the risk of being like 
the swine before which pearls are cast. You would 
be none the better for the gift, and it would be 
unwise in God or man to give it to you." 

This is true especially in spiritual things ; and 
in these the saying as a promise is also abundantly 
true. Those who ask for the highest and truest 
gifts will receive them. In the kingdom of God 
we are in a kingdom where the very desiring of the 
thing brings it. The desiring fits us for the thing 



136 MAGNA CHARTA OF THE KINGDOM OF GOD 

desired, and when we are fitted for the Spirit we 
hav^e it. That is what it is to have God's Spirit, 
namely, to be where we want God in all his good- 
ness to rule us. To want the Holy Spirit is to 
want what. the Father is waiting to give. It is 
only the sign of appreciation — hunger and thirst 
after righteousness — which he is waiting to see. 
The very wishing is the condition of getting. 

The kingdom of God is the kingdom of prayer. 
It is the kingdom where things are got for the 
asking. In the kingdom of nature, on the other 
hand, we often find outward conditions inexorably 
opposed to our receiving. Under the action of 
laws of economics and of society we often find un- 
fortunate hindrances which frustrate all our plan- 
ning. In this lower realm of God's ruling the only 
way to be fortunate is to conform to unchangeable 
laws. If we are debarred from doing this we must 
submit to the consequences. There is no begging 
off. We must console ourselves with some higher 
good which comes in another way. We may trust 
God for what we need. He knoweth that we have 
need of these things. But to be miraculously free 
from laws of nature and of society is more than 
we can expect. Howbeit, a higher good is in store 
for us, which we may have for the asking. It is 
nothing less than the blessedness of the Beatitudes. 
Seek first the kingdom of God and his righteous- 
ness, and it shall be an abundant recompense for 
the lack of earthly good fortune. In this higher 
realm gifts are brought by prayer. Prayer is but 
the appropriating of the gift. The spirit makes its 
own blessedness by its faith and its earnest desire. 



CORRECTIVES OF EGOISM 13/ 

That is to say, as we go up higher in spiritual 
things, we come more and more into a region 
where the spirit makes its own world by its adap- 
tation and desire. We look forward to heaven as 
a place of perfect adaptations. It is the place 
where the spirit has become perfectly free ; it 
wants what it has, and it has w^hat it wants. The 
progress of all development is toward the suprem- 
acy of free spirit. The lower creation is entirely 
under the rule of necessity. It moves as it is 
moved upon. The beast begins to show some 
working of freedom in its actions ; but this is 
under the bondage of the species, so that he 
makes no progress, nor do we account his actions 
responsible. The man has, to a responsible de- 
gree, freedom of will, being centrally that created 
form of spirit which we call soul ; and yet with the 
influences and limitations of his environment his 
freedom is not perfect. Much that he wants he 
must go without, and often his w^ished-for develop- 
ment is hindered by adverse fortune. He frets 
under the hard conditions of his life. He is 
always wanting more, and he is conscious of a 
hard necessity which keeps him down, so that he 
cannot be all that he desires to be. He often finds 
himself in conditions which are not adapted to his 
nature and tastes, and yet he can only chafe un- 
der them. 

But there is a higher realm into which he can 
enter by prayer. This is the realm in which his 
spirit lays hold of its freedom. It is the kingdom 
of heaven. He may have it by wanting it. He 
asks, and he receives ; he seeks, and he finds. 



138 MAGNA CHARTA OF THE KINGDOM OF GOD 

Thus as he goes on higher and higher in spiritual 
things, he makes his own world. All things work 
together for his good. May we not believe that 
heaven is the world where all these truths are fully 
realized, and w^e find ourselves perfectly adapted 
to our world, because our spirits have created their 
world by what they are and seek ? We need not 
be solicitous about our surroundings in heaven. 
Only be solicitous as to what you are, and your 
surroundings will be simply what you desire as 
sons of the heavenly Father. You desire above 
all things his Spirit, and this he is more than pa- 
rentally willing to give. 

The disposition of our heavenly 
Ver. 11 Father assures us in this matter. 
There is a little realm of things here 
below which is something like heaven in this re- 
gard. It is the loving family. If we are fathers, 
we know how it is. Do we give a stone to our child 
who asks for bread ? And yet we are evil, and do 
not always act in perfect love even toward our 
children. Shall not God much more give good 
things to them that ask him ? It is thus that 
Jesus teaches us, by the tenderest and most un- 
selfish relation into which we can enter, to con- 
ceive in some degree what is our heavenly Father's 
disposition toward his children who seek the high- 
est things. 

But all this is in accordance with the principle 
with which the discourse set out, that it is what 
we are individually which regulates our receiving, 
whether in judgment of character or in good gifts. 
It is what the recipient is which must regulate our 



CORRECTIVES OF EGOISM 1 39 

giving to him. Jesus is simply stopping for a mo- 
ment to point out that world where the principle 
applies perfectly. The world of free spirit is that 
world. All men are not treated alike ; all are not 
judged alike, nor do all receive good gifts alike. 
Yet this discrimination is no ^* respect of persons" : 
men receive as they are fitted to receive. It is 
their egoism which makes the difference — that is 
to say, the fact that they have their way of looking 
at things which no one else has, nor can any one 
perfectly enter into it so as to share their con- 
sciousness. 

In dealing with our fellow-men, however, we 
cannot act just as God does. That is, we cannot 
always bestow just as we see the person deserves 
and can appreciate ; for we do not see clearly into 
his heart. God who sees our hearts with perfect 
clearness can give to his children his best gifts 
just as they are fitted for them. But we with our 
fellow-men can only do the next best thing. And 
here comes the general rule which, 
in view of our inability to dispense Yqt. 12 
absolute justice, is to regulate our 
conduct with others. It is the Golden Rule which 
solves the difficulties of egoism — a rule so true 
and so just that no man can help admiring it, 
whether he puts it in practice or not. If all men 
acted in accordance with it society would be far 
less unstable and apprehensive than it is. ''As ye 
would that men should do to you, 
do ye also to them likewise " — this Luke 6 : 31 
sums up all that is excellent in the 
law and the prophets. Think how you would like 



140 MAGNA CHARTA OF THE KINGDOM OF GOD 

to be dealt with if you were in your neighbor's 
stead. Let imagination and sympathy enter into 
the problem. ^' Put yourself in his place," and you 
shall find all these difficulties between one individ- 
uality and another solved, as well as reciprocal hu- 
man judgments, distinguished from absolute jus- 
tice, can solve them. 

We may see this fact, that the progress of the 
world in real goodness since Christ's time, as Mr. 
Lecky has pointed out, has been marked by the 
development of the imagination. I mean that 
imagination which makes men sympathetic, that 
imagination which makes them shudder at cruelty 
because they have learned to put themselves in the 
injured being's place. It is the working, in short, 
of the spirit of the Golden Rule which brings the 
world toward the victorious kingdom of Christ. 
The most unmistakable sign of advancement in the 
world is that brutality is gradually dying out. It 
is banished to the secret places and to the lower 
ranks of life. Men learn to shudder and pity, and 
they are not ashamed of it. Under the influence 
of Christianity the public gladiator contest and the 
wild beast fight fell into desuetude long ago. It 
is difficult to imagine a state of society in which 
the most cultivated people, even tenderly nurtured 
ladies, exulted in scenes of carnage which would 
make our blood run cold. People do not take de- 
light in cruelty as they once did. War is not 
looked upon as a normal state of things. The 
duel is ridiculed ; the pugilistic encounter evades 
the police. Even the beasts are counted as having 
rights, and we form and maintain our societies for 



CORRECTIVES OF EGOISM I4I 

the prevention of cruelty to animals. A thousand 
different ways of relieving distress, preventing ig- 
norance, vagrancy, suffering, and crime, enlist the 
sympathies of men. This is destined to be so 
more and more ; and it is all in proportion as men 
cultivate the imagination so as to pity others, as 
they put themselves in their place. 

Yet we must pray that this Golden Rule may 
yet fill a much wider place in society. Far from 
perfect is the submission of men to its mild sway. 
Let us for our part act in all our dealings accord- 
ing to its guidance. We shall solve the difficulties 
of our reciprocal relations as individuals if we 
always remember to imagine how we should like 
it if positions were reversed, and as we would that 
men should do unto us, to do even so unto them. 



VII 
THE SUSCEPTIBILITY OF OBEDIENCE 



Matt 7 : 13-27 



VII 



Enter ye in by the narrow gate : for wide is the gate, and 
broad is the way, that leadeth to destruction, and many be they 
that enter in thereby. For narrow is the gate and straitened the 
way, that leadeth unto life, and few be they that find it. 

Beware of false prophets, which come to you in sheep's 
clothing, but inwardly are ravening wolves. By their fruits ye 
shall know them. Do men gather grapes of thorns, or figs of 
thistles ? Even so every good tree bringeth forth good fruit ; but 
the corrupt tree bringeth forth evil fruit. A good tree cannot 
bring forth evil fruit, neither can a corrupt tree bring forth good 
fruit. Every tree that bringeth not forth good fruit is hewn down 
and cast into the fire. Therefore by their fruits ye shall know 
them. Not every one that saith unto me. Lord, Lord, shall enter 
into the kingdom of heaven ; but he that doeth the will of my 
Father which is in heaven. Many will say to me in that day. 
Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy by thy name, and by thy name 
cast out devils, and by thy name do many mighty works ? -And 
then will I profess unto them, I never knew you : depart from me 
ye that work iniquity. Every one therefore which heareth these 
words of mine, and doeth them, shall be likened unto a wise man 
which built his house upon the rock : and the rain descended, 
and the floods came, and the winds blew, and beat upon that 
house ; and it fell not : for it was founded upon the rock. And 
every one that heareth these words of mine, and doeth them not, 
shall be likened unto a foolish man, which built his house upon 
the sand : and the rain descended, and the floods came, and the 
winds blew, and smote upon that house ; and it fell : and great 
was the fall thereof. 

Our Saviour began this Sermon on the Mount 
by throwing open the gates of the kingdom of 
heaven so that any one could enter in. The very 
humblest and least meritorious could possess him- 
self of the righteousness described in the Beati- 
tudes. It was a righteousness which came by 

K 145 



146 MAGNA CHARTA OF THE KINGDOM OF GOD 

aspiring and reaching upward, rather than by 
meriting. He who was conscious of his poverty 
of spirit, who kept his heart single and pure, who 
longed after righteousness, who made something 
higher than the praise of men the test of his god- 
liness, was in the way of the kingdom of heaven. 
How hospitable and accessible seems that kingdom 
after we have read and appropriated the words : 
''Blessed are the poor in spirit," ''Blessed are they 
that mourn," "Blessed are they that hunger and 
thirst after righteousness," "Blessed are the 
meek." To open the way for such righteousness 
as this is to make the kingdom of heaven a 
kingdom of grace ; it is to found all heavenly 
attainment on the principle that the just shall 
live by faith — that is, inward and trustful cleav- 
ing to eternal good — rather than by the deeds of 
the law. 

But now an apparently inconsist- 
Ver. 13 14 ^^^ ^^^^ presents itself. The way 
of life so generously thrown open is 
really a narrow way. But few find it. The broad 
way to destruction, on the contrary, is the way that 
is thronged. This is a fact for which Christian 
doctrine is not responsible. Not the Bible alone 
recognizes it, but all religions, and all enlightened 
observation. It is one of the commonplaces of 
human thought that the way to real excellence is 
trodden by but few. We see multitudes of men 
in all parts of our populous world whose lives em- 
body those elements of falsehood, hatred, animal- 
ity, and vice which we know cannot produce bless- 
edness. We see many lives which are kept only 



THE SUSCEPTIBILITY OF OBEDIENCE 1 47 

by temporary hindrances from a natural fate of 
fiery ruin. Despite the universal and hospitable 
truth that the poor in spirit may evermore have 
eternal life for the wishing and believing, but few 
enter and pursue the upward path, while the broad 
way that leads to destruction is full of heedless 
travelers. 

One great reason for this very general fact is 
that the many never seek the way of life. They 
are never awakened to the desire for the goodness 
and blessedness of heaven. They are drifting; 
they are going a road which it requires no moral 
effort to pursue. The many who have no high 
purpose, who see no eternal goal to strive for, who 
abandon themselves to their natural and baser de- 
sires, easily travel the broad road. No one has 
had to make effort to get them started in this 
way. No one has had to drill and discipline 
them in the lore of wickedness. It has seemed 
to come of itself ; these men have been left to 
go the road which, without moral training and 
self-control, their low^er self naturally takes. They 
have not found the strait gate because they have 
not sought it. 

But the class with which this section of the 
Lord's discourse especially concerns itself are those 
who seek the way and miss it. The most pathetic 
failure to obtain eternal life is the failure of those 
who strive to enter in. '' Narrow is the gate, and 
straitened the way, that leadeth unto life, and few 
be they that find it." It is because the way is not 
found, though sought, rather than because it is 
ignored, that these people are lost. As Luke re- 



148 MAGNA CHARTA OF THE KINGDOM OF GOD 

ports this saying it reads: *'Many 
Luke 13 : 24 shall seek to enter in, and shall not 

be able." There is a foreshadowing 
of that memorable Jewish rejection of the Son of 
God which nailed him to the cross ; we catch the 
premonitory sound of that wail from Olivet: ''If 

thou hadst known in this day, even 
Luke 19 : 42 thou, the things which belong unto 

peace! but now they are hid from 
thine eyes." Israel, following after a law of right- 
eousness, did not arrive at that law, because of a 

certain blindness or insusceptibility 
Rom. 9:31 by which the striving of centuries 

of type and prophecy at last missed 
its end. 

The gatevv^ay is indeed narrow; the germ of 
character which is sure to expand into acceptance 
with God is fitted in its beginning to tax our dis- 
cernment. But if that germ in its development 
expands into hearing these sayings of Christ and 
doing them, we may be assured that the person 
has begun aright. What then is that initial trait 
which constitutes susceptibility to the kingdom of 
God.-^ As entrance to a kingdom, submission to a 
control, it must be some kind of obedience. But 
it is an obedience, be it observed, which the most 
scrupulous and devoted nation of the world failed 
to comprehend, whose most common abuse, ac- 
cording to the Saviour's warning in these verses, 
produces the false prophet and the deluded won- 
der-worker confiding in his own exhilaration, and 
whose final achievement is outward deeds in con- 
formity to Christ's teachings. Obedience as mere 



THE SUSCEPTIBILITY OF OBEDIENCE I49 

observance of detailed precepts does not work in 
this way. It touches no deep spring of being and 
opens no barred gate. But the genuine obedience 
which this whole Sermon on the Mount is set to 
inculcate does answer to just these tests and just 
these liabilities to abuse, as will be seen when it 
is a little more clearly defined. 

I. Obedience, which is described as a narrow 
gate, would at first sight seem to mean that which 
is extremely exacting in its requirements, which 
produces a very distinct sense of the pressure of 
the higher will, and which issues in a very nar- 
rowly defined and strait-laced manner of life. The 
command, "Enter ye in at the narrow gate," would 
thus mean, '' Observe the strictest and most irre- 
proachable principles of conduct." With this idea, 
the more self-denial and crucifying of the will there 
is in the life, the more sure is it of conforming to 
the kingdom of God. The perfection of God's 
ascendency over us would be marked by the great- 
est possible power to make us do what we do not 
want to do and sacrifice what is most costly and 
dear. 

But it does not appear that the special glory of 
Christianity is the abundance or severity of its 
feats of self-crucifixion. In fact, much more mar- 
velous achievements in that kind belong to heathen 
religions. From the earliest ages men have sought 
to enter into peace by costly sacrifices and have 
not been able. It was genuine enlightenment 
from the Spirit of God which taught the psalmist 
to say, in token of victory over those haunting, 
superstitious notions: ''For thou delightest not in 



150 MAGNA CHARTA OF THE KINGDOM OF GOD 

sacrifice ; else would I give it : thou 
Ps. 51 : 16, 17 hast no pleasure in burnt offering. 
The sacrifices of God are a broken 
spirit : a broken and a contrite heart, O God, thou 
wilt not despise." It was the light of true relig- 
ious sanity which enabled the ancient prophet to 
say: '< Wherewith shall I come be- 
Micah 6 : 6-8 forc the Lord, and bow myself be- 
fore the high God? Shall I come 
before him with burnt offerings, with calves of a 
year old? Will the Lord be pleased with thou- 
sands of rams, or with ten thousands of rivers of 
oil? Shall I give my firstborn for my transgres- 
sion, the fruit of my body for the sin of my soul ? 
He hath shewed thee, O man, what is good ; and 
what doth the Lord require of thee, but to do 
justly, and to love mercy, and to walk humbly 
with thy God?" The progress from false to true 
religion seems everywhere to be marked, not by 
the increase of marvels of self-immolation, but by 
the more rational apprehension of the nature of 
God. 

Nor does mere strictness of law-keeping consti- 
tute the narrowness of the way. This was the 
idea which the Pharisees had, those people who, 
with the most glorious heritage of preparation, 
most ingloriously failed to find the kingdom of 
God. Their thought of obedience was that its 
special value was in its pressure on the will. Ob- 
servance must be so strictly prescribed that its 
interferences with the ordinary conduct shall be 
felt. With this idea, their Sabbath, which was in 
its nature a day of rest and freedom, could have 



THE SUSCEPTIBILITY OF OBEDIENCE I5I 

no acceptance with God except by a minute arbi- 
trariness which made it a day of constraint and 
bondage. Indeed, their minuteness of supervision 
over the life overshot its mark and 
produced a hypocrisy and insincerity Matt. 23 : 28 
which was the greatest obstacle to 
the Saviour's influence. It all grew Luke 12 : i 
out of the notion that obedience be- 
gins with observance, and finds its end and glory 
in the greatest pressure on, and interference with, 
the will. But, according to the teaching of Christ, 
the narrowness of the portal is seen, especially in 
that it requires a peculiar sharing in the mind of 
God to find it. The value of obedience is attested, 
not by how many difficult things the person will 
be willing to do, but how intelligent he is in dis- 
covering what God requires of him. Christ does 
not labor especially to produce scrupulousness, nor 
does he begin with burdensome commands, he 
awakens boundless hope and aspiration. But a 
certain spiritual discernment is necessary in order 
that one may find the way. It is so narrow that 
it may be missed by the anxious devotee, so hum- 
ble that the proud overlook it. Not the strictest 
external obedience insures the acceptance of God 
so long as this rightness of spiritual discernment 
is wanting. 

The initial command of the king- 
dom of heaven is, *^ Repent." If Matt. 3 : i ; 
God does not delight in costly sacri- 4 • 17 
fice, he does accept a contrite heart. 
And this repentance is more than mere sorrow for 
sin ; it is the coming to be of a new mind. Mat- 



152 MAGNA CHARTA OF THE KINGDOM OF GOD 

thew Arnold has made the word ^'metanoia'' the 
subject of one of his happy translations. He says : 
*'We translate it repentance^ a mourning and la- 
menting over one's sins, and we translate it wrong. 
Of ^metanoia,' as Jesus used the word, the lament- 
ing one's sins was a small part ; the main part was 
something far more active and fruitful, the setting 
up an immense new inward movement for obtain- 
ing the rule of life. And ^metanoia^' accordingly, 
is a change of tJie inner man'' Jesus told Nico- 

demus that a man must be born 
John 3 : 3 again in order to see the kingdom 

of God ; it is through lack of this 
new birth that men fail to discover the narrow 
portal. By prayer and self-consecration a spirit is 
acquired which is no less than a sharing in the 

divine mind, and Jesus in this ser- 
ver. II mon says that God is more willing 

to give this spirit in response to 
Luke II : 13 prayer than we are to give good 

gifts to our children. By this spirit, 
or new inner man, we come to stand, as it were, 
on common ground with God, so that we appre- 
hend his nature and the requirements of his holi- 
ness. It is thus that we enter in, thus that we 
appropriate the righteousness of the Beatitudes 
without our enthusiasm harming us, or leading us 
into erratic paths of sentimentalism and delusion. 

This obedience of the kingdom, therefore, arises 
from the possession of a new nature. Its com- 
pleteness is marked, not so much by conscious 
constraint from God's will, as by spontaneous, 
self-regulated action in a line with his will. It 



THE SUSCEPTIBILITY OF OBEDIENCE I 53 

begins in religious feeling. Its characteristic 
movement is the seeking of blessedness, of ideal 
good. It embraces a righteousness which may be 
had by asking, by persuading one's self that he 
has it, by the energy of faith. Positive precepts 
are everywhere interpreted and held by their un- 
derlying principle rather than by their letter; and, 
indeed, that about the man which is developed 
most effectively is not the capacity for submission, 
but the law-making power. In the end the man 
becomes a law unto himself, like the Son of Man, 
the only perfect exponent of this obedience, not 
doing his own will, but the will of him that sent 
him, and yet doing this divine will because it is 
his own nature. 

Such a spirit must be embraced while it is unde- 
veloped in the soul. Not its observances but its 
germ is the first thing to be planted in the heart. 
We have not all the marks for discerning it in its 
beginnings which appear in its practical outcome 
later on. The greatest circumspection is requisite 
at the portal; many seek the way and do not find 
it. The test is in the development. All the rest 
of the Saviour's discourse, therefore, is devoted to 
the very essential advice, '*Have a care for the 
fruits." The person often believes he is born again, 
in the only way in which he can determine the fact 
while his experience is undeveloped, namely, by 
feeling; and often the germ thus thought to be 
implanted develops into something very different 
from a life in a line with God's will. The tree 
must be judged by its fruit; many whose feeling 
and power have nourished great hopes will find 



154 MAGNA CHARTA OF THE KINGDOM OF GOD 

themselves unrecognized at last, and the only 
proof of solidly founded character is the final out- 
come that these sayings of Jesus are rightly heard 
and practised. 

2. But an obedience which begins 
Ver. 15-23 i^ emancipation and fervent feehng 
has its characteristic danger or cor- 
ruption. Many who even strive after a new birth 
fail to find the narrow way. As the abuse of the 
merely legal obedience produces the lifeless and 
enslaving college of scribes, so the abuse of the 
impulse for ideal blessedness produces the false 
prophet and the deluded wonder-worker. After 
setting forth the nature of the kingdom of heaven, 
it is but natural that Jesus should point out the 
conditions that particularly belong to such a king- 
dom. '^ Beware of false prophets, which come to 
you in sheep's clothing, but inwardly are ravening 
wolves. By their fruits ye shall know them.'' 

The false prophets are those who have experi- 
enced something of the warmth and glow of the 
kingdom, but are not renewed in heart. Inwardly 
they have anything rather than the meek and lowly 
disposition of the Lamb of God. They are selfish 
and violent, like ravening wolves. But without 
they are arrayed in sheep's clothing. They have 
become sufficiently versed in Christian doctrine so 
that it gives them a fluency of speech and an ex- 
altation of the intellect. George Eliot remarks 
that it is one of the mixed results of revivals that 
some gain a religious vocabulary rather than a re- 
ligious experience. It is not hard for an unsanc- 
tified heart to be really animated with the abstract 



THE SUSCEPTIBILITY OF OBEDIENCE I 55 

truths of revelation. He may see their cogency, 
their nobleness, their self-evidencing truth. All 
this may awaken his admiration ; and all his as- 
senting and reasoning powers may experience a 
sense of exaltation and satisfaction. His admira- 
tion he may mistake for worship. He imbibes the 
theory of Christianity so copiously that he becomes 
a prophet. He opens his mouth, and it seems like 
the word of God flowing from it, so fluent and 
ready is his mental action on religious themes. 
And the very joy he experiences in setting forth 
these truths may deceive him into thinking he is 
thereby made a disciple of Christ. The very adap- 
tation of Christian thought to his reasoning powers 
may satisfy and elate him, when he knows nothing 
of the saving results of that truth in his life. But 
Christian doctrine thus taken in charge and dis- 
pensed by a corrupt heart is sure to be corrupted 
in its transmission into something of harmful ten- 
dency; the unsanctified fountain wells up in false 
prophecy. 

This characteristic perversion of 
Christian inspiration must be judged Ver. 15-19 
by its fruits. Men do not gather 
grapes of thorns, nor figs of thistles. If you 
would know the character of the impulse which 
thus quickens the mental powers and unlooses the 
tongue, observe the results. They will be as in- 
variable as the fruit from the tree. ''A good tree 
cannot bring forth evil fruit, neither can a corrupt 
tree bring forth good fruit." That ferment of in- 
spiring thought and feeling which produces the 
movement of real consecrated activity, may also 



156 MAGNA CHARTA OF THE KINGDOM OF GOD 

produce in the false heart the movement of erro- 
neous teaching. Jesus has already 
Matt 5 : 19 pointed out the one who, in the in- 
spiration of the kingdom, teaches 
men to transgress the least of God's recorded pre- 
cepts, and shows how he is rewarded by a speedy 
lapse into insignificance. But even those who 
have missed the narrow portal may in like manner 
teach, as if by an inspiring spirit, the most hurtful 
error ; and though their doctrine cannot stand, yet 
during its brief time of influence it may lead many 
astray ; so that it is the most obvious wisdom for 
the disciple to beware of them. 

A closely related product of per- 
Ver. 20-23 verted religious enthusiasm is the 
man whose sole ground of rejoicing 
is that he works wonders in Christ's name. Not 
every one who says to Jesus, Lord, Lord, shall 
enter into the kingdom of heaven. There is a 
certain success in the name of the Lord which 
may be attained by a spirit very unlike his. Re- 
ligious success or fluency is not in itself a proof 
that the person belongs to the kingdom of heaven. 
He who builds all his joy and self-approval on his 
success in the name of Christ is cultivating a very 
shallow and unspiritual type of piety. 
Luke 10 : 20 Jesus cautioncd the Seventy when 
they returned from their first suc- 
cessful trip of healing and evangelizing, even while 
he thanked the Father with them that the demons 
were subject to them through his name, not to re- 
joice because the spirits were subject to them, but 
rather to rejoice because their names were written 



THE SUSCEPTIBILITY OF OBEDIENCE I 5/ 

in heaven. I am afraid many an enthusiastic Chris- 
tian worker forgets to bring all his plans and his 
enthusiasms to this test, and falls to regulating his 
work solely by the standard of success. Remem- 
ber that those whom Jesus pronounces blessed are 
the persecuted, those whose lives, to superficial ob- 
servation^ exhibit a melancholy failure of success. 
Jesus pictures a group at the last day saying to 
him, Lord, Lord, who have been very successful 
in prophesying and in all wonder-working in his 
name, but who have nothing in common with his 
spirit, and whom he does not recognize as his 
friends. We may well be admonished to look 
deeper within for fruits of the Spirit, or evidences 
that we are in the way of life, than at the success- 
ful work which we may do, in a world so easily led 
away by false teachers, even in the name of Christ. 

But all these perversions must be judged in 
their development rather than in their germ. The 
religious feeling is the beginning of true obedience, 
but it is not so distinctive in its character as to be 
unerringly known apart from its fruits. Some- 
thing very like it may develop the false prophet or 
the unspiritual accomplisher of great things. Yet 
while that feeling is undeveloped we must appro- 
priate it and act upon it. No wonder the Saviour 
enjoins great care in entering the strait gate, for 
many, with heedless mistaking of the true spirit, 
fail to find it. 

We do not seek this gate, however, altogether 
blindly. There are characteristics by which the 
true heart, without waiting for the event, may 
know the way of life. Those who by their enthu- 



158 MAGNA CHARTA OF THE KINGDOM OF GOD 

siasm become false prophets, or build a delusive 
hope on their success, have only themselves to 
blame for missing the way of life. Some base ad- 
mixture has mingled itself with their motives for 
seeking the narrow gate ; and with a selfish bias 
they have entered the wrong portal. It is by the 
purest intuition alone that the way of the kingdom 
of God can be seen in its beginnings ; the pure in 
heart see God. That initial and most healthful 
impulse of the human soul by which, apart from 
conventional and selfish considerations, we judge 
right and wrong must never be denied. It is the 
voice of the Holy Spirit. The obedience which 
is susceptible to the knowledge of God is faithful- 
ness to our highest intuitions. If the Jews had 
preserved and been faithful to their truest intui- 
tions, instead of becoming entangled in their con- 
ventional notions of piety, they would have known 
Jesus simply by his divine goodness, and not have 
rejected him. It is not by conventional signs that 
the strait gate is found, but by the sincere in- 
tuition of a pure heart. 

3. The final test, however, of true 
Ver. 24-27 obedience is harmony with Christ's 
teachings. '' Every one therefore 
which heareth these words of mine, and doeth 
them, shall be likened unto a wise man which built 
his house upon the rock." That trustful accept- 
ance of ideal goodness which so penetrates the 
heart as to produce actual conformity in life with 
the sayings of Christ is shown to be a solid founda- 
tion. Such religious life the storms of hardship 
and passion do not shake. It shows an obedience 



THE SUSCEPTIBILITY OF OBEDIENCE I 59 

which is true and spiritual, and which also brings 
all the selfish propensities into subjection to it, so 
as to produce outward conduct in a line with the 
Saviour's character. 

Observe the two ways in which the development 
of obedience may be conceived of. That obedience 
which is mechanical conformity to prescribed rules 
puts hearing and doing at the beginning. This is 
not its final test and glory, this is its first act. 
But if we were looking for the power of such obe- 
dience to develop human character, our question 
would be, '' How much of the inward spirit and 
higher discernment does such obedience create .^ " 
It begins with the outside, how deep does it strike 
in ^ This was the test by which the worth of the 
Mosaic economy was judged. Given the positive 
precept and its conservation, how much of the 
nature of God will people learn from his law ? 
The lawgiver might say, '^ Whosoever heareth these 
words of mine, and becometh of one mind with 
me in the control of his own life, he it is who is 
solidly founded." In such a system of positive 
commands an outward law was given, and its task 
was to produce an inward spirit, and a developed 
moral intelligence. Its crown and test would be 
its inward results. 

But the obedience taught by Christ begins with 
the inward. It is primarily a new heart and an 
aspiring spirit. The test of its completeness is 
outward deeds in conformity with the teachings of 
Christ. Given the spirit of the Beatitudes in the 
person's heart, how much and what will it make 
him do ? It begins at the center, how efficiently 



l6o MAGNA CHARTA OF THE KINGDOM OF GOD 

does it work out ? If it only makes a false prophet 
or a selfish wonder-worker of the man, it is not 
the solid foundation. The true development of a 
character which begins in spiritual enthusiasm is 
seen in every-day Christlike deeds. 

And this is a real test, because in thus obeying 
God the person is doing his own will. When he 
has risen to the level of such obedience he does 
not wait to hear the positive command ; he acts of 
his own sanctified purpose. He is following out 
the promptings of a new nature. As the observ- 
ance of commands in their spirit becomes more 
habitual the pressure of the higher will upon the 
conduct is less consciously felt, and the progress 
is toward greater spontaneity and second nature. 
As this second nature freely expands, the question 
of interest with regard to it is, '' How vital a sim- 
ilarity to Christ's teachings will result from such 
self-chosen conduct } " A real test of spontaneous 
goodness is its conformity to the words of Christ. 

But if it abides the test it indicates a glorious 
thing. It shows not merely subserviency to, but 
oneness with, Christ. Not only is the person sub- 
dued to his will, but he is a sharer in his nature. 
Christ has come actually to dwell in him. To them 
who believe is given power to be- 
Koinonia, come SOUS of God. They have a 
I John I : 3 fellowship, or sharing of spirit with 
him : they are doing his will from 
their own independent perception of its wisdom 
and fitness. They are raised to the level of asso- 
ciates, embracing the same infinite ends, cherish- 
ing the same loving and heavenly purposes, and 



THE SUSCEPTIBILITY OF OBEDIENCE l6l 

using their own sanctified judgment in every new 
juncture of circumstance and civilization to carry 
them out. Thus thpir obedience is not the obe- 
dience of servants, but the obedience 
of friends. '' Ye are my friends," John 15 : 14 
says Jesus, ** if ye do the things 
which I command you." A character which ex- 
hibits this indication of free, unconstrained move- 
ment in a line with the spirit of Christ is the 
character which is likened to a house built on the 
rock. And the character which, whatever the fer- 
vency of its initial glow of feeling, consists only 
in hearing and not doing, is likened to the house 
built on sand ; the rains descend, and the floods 
come, and the winds blow, and smite upon that 
house, and it falls with a great and melancholy 
fall. 

The Sermon on the Mount is a fundamental 
law in this sense, that it is a definition of the rela- 
tion of human subjects to the will of their divine 
King. It is the Magna Charta of the kingdom of 
God, the letters patent of the liberty wherewith 
Christ hath made us free. It enters into the 
practical relations of life as a leavening spirit 
whereby all obedience is transfigured, and all true 
character made godhke. It is not simply a re-en- 
acting of the old law in more spiritual form, so 
that it shall rest on the conscience in the same 
way in which positive precepts press upon it. To 
erect the kingdom of heaven on that basis would 
simply be to begin a development of the same es- 
sential nature as the old theocracy, and destined 



1 62 MAGNA CHARTA OF THE KINGDOM OF GOD 

to end in the same bondage which was found to 
result from the Jewish law. Christian precepts 
and institutions henceforth appeal to the obedience 
by their idea or spnit, which the enlightened con- 
science has come to comprehend, rather than by 
sheer weight of authority. Thus the Christian is 
obeying God, but he is at the same time discover- 
ing his own way and creating his own institutions 
by the indwelling spirit w^hich has become the 
heart of his own character. 

Yet this free obedience does not discard the 

specific precepts of the olden time. The teaching 

of Christ always remains true, *' If 

Matt. 19 : 17 thou wouldest enter into life, keep 
the commandments." The spon- 
taneous obedience of love does not need the an- 
nulment of the law as a law in order to the free 
exercise of aspiration and spiritual judgment. But 
it enters into the reasons for those commands, and 
adopts them with the same motive and spirit with 
which they were revealed. It does not dispense 
with authority, but it counts its faith incomplete 
until it has seen the reasons for believing and obey- 
ing, and has assented because of its own glad per- 
ception of the end to be attained. 

Nor is the spirit of obedience under this Magna 
Charta of Christian liberty always quarreling with 
the existing Use and Wont, that it may establish 
a better way of its own. Much of that ** cake of 
custom " into which at any period the impulses of 
society have solidified is purely conventional habit. 
The prevailing custom may have had its sufficient 
reason for existing once, but that reason is no 



THE SUSCEPTIBILITY OF OBEDIENCE 1 63 

longer discoverable. Yet its established existence 
gives it binding force. Obligations and restraints 
of particular kinds rest on men simply because 
they belong to a particular form of civilization. 
These have a de facto authority as recognized and 
expected usages. Many of these restraints of 
custom belong almost obviously to an imperfect 
order of things ; and yet it may so happen that 
the Christian of the Beatitudes does not have the 
perception of their lack of absolute fitness. The 
child of the same influences which produced the 
existing custom, he may enthusiastically follow 
that custom as the will of God. It is not 
given to many to become reconstructors of society. 
That which men expect, if it be not at war with 
the conscience, may be a real obligation ; the love 
for the weaker brother may lead even to an abridg- 
ment of liberty for the sake of avoiding occasions 
of stumbling. Some of the Christian's own dis- 
ciplinary habits may be so mechanical as to be a 
disturbing reminder of his imperfection ; but yet 
he may need them, and may reach upward through 
them toward a perfect righteousness which is per- 
fect freedom. The question is not alone, how 
near to the final consummation are the institutions 
which the person shall respect, nor how near the 
absolute truth are the beliefs to which he is edu- 
cated, but especially in what spirit he obeys that 
form of teaching whereunto he was 
delivered. If it gives opportunity Rom. 6 : 17 
according to his limited mind for 
the perfect obedience, then it is sufficient for his 
sanctification. There is always the law-making 



164 MAGNA CHARTA OF THE KINGDOM OF GOD 

power in the heart ; and this, though mainly occu- 
pied in enabling the man to see through his own 
eyes the fitness and binding force of the morality 
of his time, has the strength, when custom shall 
become insincere and evil, to break it up and in- 
terpret for itself anew the spirit of Christ. Thus 
Christian society under this charter has perpetual 
power to renew itself ; as its customs become bur- 
densome they may be replaced by the re-adapted 
creations of the enlightened understanding. 

Thus obedience rises by faithfulness to the ob- 
ligations which are next at hand to the higher con- 
ception of, and conformity to, the will of God. 
Never idly waiting for the perfect to come before 
it begins to act, it is always above all things obe- 
dient, always fulfilling conscientiously the less per- 
fect, that thus it may rise to the comprehension of 
the more. Thus the force of Christlike enthu- 
siasm and love, which is creating and renewing 
Christian customs, is a building and establishing, 
rather than a revolutionary force, and it contains in 
itself the power, by perpetual self-renewal, to bring 
in at last the new heavens and the new earth. 

Will ye renounce this pact of creatureship ? 
The pattern on the Mount subsists no more, 
Seemed awhile, then returned to nothingness ; 
But copies, Moses strove to make thereby. 
Serve still and are replaced as time requires ; 
By these, make newest vessels, reach the type ! 
If ye demur, this judgment on your head, 
Never to reach the ultimate, angels' law, 
Indulging every instinct of the soul 
There where law, life, joy, impulse are one thing ! 

— Browjiing. 



MAY 23 1900 



'.70 



